1. education

What is research-led
teaching?
Multi-disciplinary
perspectives
What is research-led
teaching?
Multi-disciplinary
perspectives
Members
Edited by
Alisa Miller, John Sharp
and Jeremy Strong
With special thanks to
© 2012 CREST, the authors,
artists and photographers
Designed by
HDR Visual Communication Ltd.
www.hdr-online.com
Contents
4
2 Disciplines
38
3 Case studies
78
The High Wycombe electronic Furniture Archive
139
6
Music, research and self-efficacy in Higher
Education
39
Between production and display: On teaching
curating to Fine Arts students
79
Research and teaching: An investigation of student
teachers’ ability to reflect
145
10
Integrating research and teaching in Crop
Physiology
46
Creative Challenge: Entrepreneurship education
and research
88
Embracing indeterminancy: English Literature
and research-led teaching
151
1 Pedagogies
Visualising the Research-Teaching Nexus
11
49
Drawing as a collective activity
153
17
‘Blackpool Vistas’: Rethinking theoretical studies
in Art and Design as research-led teaching
90
Research supervision as apprenticeship
Making and thinking: Art, contextual practice
and sustainability
22
53
Glassblowing: A sustainably viable creative
practice
96
159
Critical Commentary, publishing and
research-led teaching
Working together: Cross-sector practice
development in Art and Design as research-led
teaching
Research and engagement in the Performing Arts
Up the creek without a communication aid: Speech
and language therapy and outdoor education
162
Assessment feedback and learning skills:
A research project to improve development
and policy practice
24
A joined up framework for identifying
dissertation topics in a technical environment
(Computer Networking)
60
Formative work to support student academic
development in biological sciences
167
Capacity building for research-led teaching and
teaching-led research: The impact of confidence,
career stage and other factors
30
Research that matters: Expanding definitions
of research-led teaching in History
66
Integrating service provision, research and
student learning in sport and health science:
A replicable model?
74
Foreword
Chris Gaskell, Kerstin Mey and Andy Westwood
Introduction
Alisa Miller, John Sharp and Jeremy Strong
2
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Theatre for Development
104
The importance of the unfamiliar and the
unexpected in creative teaching, interpretation
and learning
106
The Vacation Research Assistantship Scheme
116
A new relationship between research and the
teaching of wildlife rehabilitation
122
Processing: Analogue/Digital Material Surfaces
(imprecise with precise tools)
125
3
Contents
Foreword
Chris Gaskell, Royal Agricultural College
Kerstin Mey, University for the Creative Arts
and Andy Westwood, GuildHE
Debates about Higher Education reform have often concentrated on teaching
quality and incentives to improve it. At other times we have talked about
world-class research and how it will drive economic performance and the
global reputation of our universities. Ministers regularly talk about teaching
institutions and research-intensive universities, but less often about how
the two important agendas come together.
Knowledge is not static or one-dimensional. Knowledge and our
understanding and application of it, is evolving and changing every day.
Teachers, researchers and students all play their part in understanding,
exploring and applying knowledge. A key skill for all graduates is the ability
to assess and use new knowledge throughout their careers.
This publication sets out a series of case studies in which research and
teaching do come together – in institutions that regularly top the tables for
teaching quality and employability. The Sunday Times University Guide for
2013 ranks six institutions represented in this collection – Harper Adams
University College, University of Chichester, Newman University College,
University of Winchester, Leeds Trinity University College and St Mary’s
University College Twickenham – in the top twenty nationally for teaching
excellence. All contributing institutions work closely with potential employers
in key sectors, ensuring that students have the opportunity to test and apply
their research skills.
4
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
The best teaching and learning is always informed and improved by research
and contributes to shaping research issues and agendas. Classifying institutions
as one or the other, or separating out these activities from one another, will
be to the detriment of our universities and our students. It will also hold back
the development of local economies and key sectors where understanding and
applying new knowledge is crucial.
We must celebrate and support teaching that is led by and combined with
research and informs critical and creative inquiry. This collection of case studies
is a good start.
Prof Chris Gaskell is Principal of the Royal Agricultural College
and Chair of the Consortium for Research Excellence, Support
and Training (CREST).
Prof Kerstin Mey is Director for Research + Enterprise at
the University for the Creative Arts and Director of CREST.
Andy Westwood is Chief Executive Officer at GuildHE.
5
Foreword
Introduction
Alisa Miller, CREST and GuildHE
John Sharp, Bishop Grosseteste University College
and Jeremy Strong, Writtle College
This origins of this book lie within a comment made by the Minister for Higher
Education, David Willetts, in 2012, very much in the midst of recent fee reforms,
when everyone involved in teaching, learning and research in the United
Kingdom was considering, even more so than usual, the ‘value’ of a university
education. In May 2012, the mission group Million+ debuted a report called
Research that Matters, and hosted a launch event at the House of Commons in
Westminster. There, the Minister suggested that, impressed as he was with the
report’s emphasis on engaged research, he would like to see a similar report on
Teaching that Matters – which Million+ subsequently produced in 2012. This
focused on the student experience, and explored another aspect of the role Higher
Education plays in changing lives.
The debate surrounding how research, teaching and learning interact
within the academy and the wider cultural landscape very much struck a
chord with members of the Consortium for Research Excellence, Support and
Training (CREST). CREST had been set up in 2009 as a sub-association of the
representative body GuildHE, with seed funding from the Higher Education
Funding Council for England (HEFCE) matched by institutional subscriptions,
with the aim of drawing together researchers working in clusters located in
small, specialist and regional Universities and University Colleges across the
United Kingdom. These researchers were producing work of an excellent quality
as determined by the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) benchmark in 2008
– while working within institutions where teaching and learning remained
paramount. In these institutions, and for this group of individuals, research had
6
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
never been treated as something apart from or above their work with students.
Indeed it informed their teaching and practice, often leading to new and exciting
approaches to how students (undergraduate and postgraduate) and their lecturers
go about knowledge and skills creation.
As the CREST work on cross and interdisciplinary collaboration and research
development expanded – informed by a growing network of Vice Chancellors and
Principals, Heads of Research, research-active staff and students – the desire to
articulate a shared vision about the how research and teaching interacted grew.
So did the need to explore the common links and questions posed by communities
of practice across the CREST, including research and learning in the creative
disciplines, humanities, education, the agricultural sciences, technology, sport,
health and ageing.
The result is this publication which addresses the open question of ‘what is
research-led teaching?’ Here, as in CREST and GuildHE Members’ institutions,
students and staff contribute to the debate about practice. They utilise educational
theory to interrogate and improve their research and teaching. They provide
examples of curricular innovation in the arts, sciences and humanities. They
present case-studies illustrating the challenges and solutions arising within
particular disciplines, relying on the constant discovery, self-examination and
feedback implicit in research and teaching processes.
The result is an exploration of ‘what research-led teaching is’ that is diverse,
eclectic and ultimately collaborative. A flavour of this is presented in the three
sections of this publication which follow.
7
Introduction
Royal Agricultural College
Despite the variety of approaches and disciplines represented in the publication,
common themes emerge. All show that, despite the structural challenges facing
UK Higher Education with respect to the funding of research and teaching, the
academy, students and the wider society need to inform each other. Research and
teaching both rely heavily on the principle of creativity in both staff and students;
creativity combined with rigorous and innovate methods of inquiry. The skills
that Higher Education must develop in staff and students alike are instilled by
a process of critical enquiry and engagement involving questioning, exploration
and communication that draws on resources from across the spectrum of research,
teaching and learning. These skills are, in many cases, generated and amplified as
a result of close collaboration with industries and communities, as well as through
the interactions of colleagues across the Higher Education sector.
Thus, it is the combined power of creativity, critique and application that
is at the heart of research and teaching across the CREST and the sector. The
discussion about how best to structure support for all activities undertaken within
Universities and University Colleges will continue, but the ideals, practices and
skills explored in this publication remain central to the academic and social
‘value’ proposition of Higher Education in the United Kingdom.
Dr Alisa Miller is Senior Policy Advisor (Research & Innovation)
and CREST Research Network Coordinator at GuildHE and
Research Fellow at the University of Chichester.
Prof John Sharp is Head of Doctoral Studies at Bishop Grosseteste
University College.
Dr Jeremy Strong is Head of Higher Education, Writtle College.
8
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
9
Introduction
Pedagogies
Visualising the Research-Teaching Nexus
Geoff Stoakes and Pauline Couper
University College Plymouth St Mark & St John
The Research-Teaching Nexus
Research has not always been central to academic life;
‘At the turn of the twentieth century most UK academics
typically engaged in scholarship and undergraduate
teaching, but research as it is now understood was
relatively rare’(Schofield, 2006). The threat posed by the
German government’s investment in its universities’
scientific research led the UK government to follow
suit in the 1920s. However, it was the expansion of
higher education system in the UK in the 1960s and the
emergence of new universities with government funding
for research that transformed research from being
an elite activity undertaken by specialist groups in
a small number of institutions to something expected
of all academics.
More recently, however, the limits on government
funding have made research more competitive,
symbolised by the introduction of the Research
Assessment Exercise (RAE) and, subsequently, the
Research Excellence Framework (REF). This has led
to the separation of research and teaching with some
universities introducing ‘teaching-only’ contracts and
increasingly using postgraduates as teachers in order
to free up research-active staff to publish and to secure
more funding, but thereby reducing their involvement
in teaching. This led some academics to suggest that the
RAE had ‘effectively broken the link’ (between research
and teaching).
Moreover this helped to shape the belief in political
circles that ‘the relationship between teaching and
research was not symbiotic’(Tapper and Salter, 2002). As
a result, government developed separate guidance on the
transparent approach to costing research and teaching.
The difficulty in fully funding the outcome of RAE
2001 reinforced the disconnect between research and
teaching, with the Higher Educational Funding Council
for England (HEFCE) promoting institutional diversity
and introducing separate funding to support excellence in learning and teaching, widening participation
and knowledge exchange via the Teaching Quality
Enhancement Fund. In 2005, perhaps responding to a
campaign stressing that research directly benefited the
student learning experience, HEFCE introduced funding
to support research-informed teaching in less researchintensive institutions. However, despite this concession,
the different quality assurance and funding mechanisms
11
Pedagogies
‘The relationship between teaching and research in the
modern university is one of international concern… Both
research-intensive and teaching-intensive universities
need to set out to consciously create a meaningful
relationship within their institutions’ (Prosser, 2005).
1
10
This chapter explains how one higher education
institution, University College Plymouth St Mark and
St John (UCP Marjon) set out to ‘consciously create
a meaningful relationship’ between research and
teaching, and how a visual representation of it assisted
its dissemination and adoption. Discussions around the
pedagogies and practices of research-led and researchinformed teaching remain a cornerstone of academic
debate across the Higher Education sector.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Fig 1: The ‘SandRA’ diagram,
developed by Geoff Stoakes,
Barbara Allmark, Anne Ayre, John
Blakely, Pauline Couper and Tony
Wright at the Change Academy,
September 2005.
UCP Marjon and research
University College Plymouth St Mark and St John is
a small University College, which offered vocational
and non-vocational programmes at undergraduate and
postgraduate level under an accreditation agreement with
the University of Exeter until it acquired Taught DegreeAwarding Powers in 2007. Before 1992 it was, like the
then polytechnics, ineligible to submit to the Research
Assessment Exercise. Its first small-scale submission
to the 1996 RAE attracted only a very modest amount
of funding, but this nevertheless largely determined
the institutional Research Strategy, with income being
channelled into those successful units of assessment,
facilitating research-led appointments, sabbaticals,
reduced teaching loads and the supervision (jointly
with the University of Exeter) of doctoral students. The
result of the submission was thus to create a distinction
between those departments which were ‘research-active’
(those successful in the RAE) and the rest.
Arguably, the availability, and pursuit, of additional
external funding led to the acceptance of the RAE
definition of research with which a large proportion of
the academic staff could not identify. The RAE 2001
defined research as ‘original investigation undertaken to
gain knowledge and understanding’. It largely separated
the notion of scholarship from research, embracing it
only so far as it involved: ‘the creation, development
and maintenance of the intellectual infrastructure of
subjects and disciplines,’ and recognising, as research,
only publications ‘such as dictionaries, scholarly
editions, catalogues and contributions to major research
databases’. In short, it reduced scholarship to the process
of keeping up-to-date with the latest research. This
is a far cry from the notion of scholarship articulated
by Ernest Boyer in 1990, which included inquiry,
integration, application and teaching and ‘emphasised the
equivalences… between interpretation and insight as
well as applied problem-solving’.
The RAE certainly problematized the link between
research and teaching. If only a small number of staff
were considered to be genuinely ‘research-active’,
research-informed teaching might be demonstrable only
in the delivery by such staff of Master’s and Doctorallevel provision.
However, the change in HE policy after 2002, with
the greater emphasis on institutional diversity and
the dedicated support for research-informed teaching
(TQEF) occasioned, if not caused, a fundamental
re-think of the institution’s Research Strategy. In
2004, a new Strategy defined research in a far more
inclusive manner as ‘systematic enquiry leading to
the advancement of knowledge, practice and understanding’. The Strategy explicitly acknowledged what
had always been implicit, that the institutional mission
was ‘teaching-led and research-informed’. Moreover,
it started from the assumption that connection(s)
between teaching and research was an essential feature
of higher education.
Recognising that effecting the cultural change embodied
in the new strategy would not be easy, a cross-college
research team attended the Leadership Foundation/Higher
Education Academy’s 2005 Change Academy to devise
an implementation plan. Firstly, the team decided that
the more established notion of scholarship whereby staff
not only kept up-to-date with the latest research in their
field, but also applied or modelled it in their teaching,
was centrally important to the institution. Henceforth it
would refer not to ‘research and scholarly activity’ but to
‘scholarly and research activity’ (or ‘SandRA’ for short),
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
13
Pedagogies
for research and teaching have meant that a structural
separation of the two remains embedded in national policy.
Perhaps as a result, a significant amount of academic
work has been devoted to examining the nature of any
relationship between research and teaching in Higher
Education. Empirical research has tended to adopt two
broad approaches, correlating quantitative measures of
teaching quality with measures of research, or examining
the views of the parties involved (primarily academic staff
and students). More speculative and theoretical accounts
have developed models of the relations between research
and teaching, and proposed ways in which the integration
of the two can, or should, be promoted.
The correlation-based studies provide conflicting
evidence: departments and institutions may score highly
in measures of both research and teaching (positive
correlation), or high in one and low in the other (negative
correlation), while in some studies no correlation is
apparent. This lack of consistency in findings is likely
to be partly, if not wholly, due to different measures of
research and teaching being used, and it reveals only
that these complex activities are not easily reduced
to simple quantitative indicators. Qualitative studies
have highlighted this complexity, with perceptions and
experiences of the research/teaching interface differing
between individual academics, students, departments,
disciplines and institutions. Some argue that the relation is
most visible when attention is paid to the processes, rather
than products, of research, the methodology rather than the
output. This has led to descriptions of academic disciplines
as ‘communities of practice’, with staff inducting HE
students into the practices of the discipline. After two
decades of research, the dominant conclusion is that the
‘research/teaching nexus’ is not a simple, single thing.
12
thus indicating the change in cultural emphasis. Secondly,
the team produced a diagrammatic representation of the
relationship between SandRA and learning and teaching
(Figure 1).
For the team who designed it, the diagram encapsulated
a number of key features of interface between scholarly and
research activity and learning and teaching:
of the diagram. Despite queries about the terms used
within it, no definitions were provided. This forced the
participants to articulate their own views on the links
between research and learning and teaching.
The responses were highly instructive. They included:
However, this diagram was not intended to be a finished
product, but to provoke debate. Without this, there would
be no ownership of the related strategy. It was, therefore,
used in structured staff development sessions in the
college, and later in dissemination activities with external
groups. Staff were asked to locate their own research and
learning and teaching activities on a large print version
• Questioning the definition and inclusion of ‘scholarly
activity’, and arguing that this should not be separated
from the other quadrants. This response seemed to
conform with the RAE view of scholarship as an activity
subsidiary, if not unconnected, to research. The design
team resisted this suggestion, believing that awarding
equal status to scholarly activity was necessary to
signify the break with the previous strategy.
• Suggesting that the centre circle should be changed
from learning and teaching to ‘knowledge construction’,
which would embrace the outcome of both staff
and student activity. The design team were initially
surprised by how easily student activities could be
located on the diagram. On reflection, this perhaps
showed the shift in ‘emphasis towards student learning
and away from traditional notions of teaching as the
transmission of knowledge’ (Locke, 2004). Focusing on
how knowledge is constructed revealed more clearly
how student activities paralleled staff research.
• Suggesting that the arrows, which were originally
uni-directional with all the types of scholarly/
research activities pointing to the centre, should be bidirectional, thereby indicating that classroom activities
can stimulate scholarly enquiry (particularly in the area
of pedagogic research) as well as being informed by it.
14
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
• The circular structure was intended to symbolise the allencompassing nature of the relationship.
• The four quadrants were intended to indicate that all
types of research activity whether it be primary research,
applied or action research, creative research or scholarly
activity were valued equally.
• The fact that the various types of research activity cut
across the ‘division’ between subject and pedagogical
research symbolised the equality of status accorded
to both.
• The use of concentric circles with learning and teaching
at the heart of the diagram indicated its central
importance within the institution, and the use of arrows
between the quadrants stressed the impact of subject or
pedagogic research on learning and teaching.
The relationship between research (more widely defined)
and learning and teaching could indeed be symbiotic.
Implementation
There is no doubt that the SandRA diagram stimulated
discussion of the research-teaching nexus. Its deliberate
vagueness – the absence of definitions; the fact that it
does not frame research specifically as either commodity
or process (to return to the literature review noted above)
or prescribe the inter-dependency between research and
teaching – encouraged academics to define the nexus for
themselves.
The University College has since given concrete
expression to the importance of the linkages by
establishing an annual Learning, Teaching and Research
conference, celebrating the interaction between key aspects
of academic practice. Furthermore, it is now a requirement
of validation that programmes demonstrate how research
skills are taught and experienced within the curriculum.
Another key change is a commitment to ensuring
that all staff have experience of research by providing
financial assistance for those recruited with considerable
professional experience but without higher degrees to
undertake doctoral studies. This gets to the heart of the
issue of research-informed teaching in an era of mass
higher education, as one leading academic told a House of
Commons Select Committee in March 2009:
It is essential that the people who teach students
know about the limits of knowledge. It is essential
that they have been researchers… that they keep up
15
to date with their subject…but the central fact about
most of our teachers is that most of the time they
are teaching beyond their research zone. They are
teaching things they themselves did not research. It is
their academic experience they are teaching and that
is what the students are learning, and that is why it
is important to pick up on …the notion that students
need to engage in research while they are studying.
Conclusion
Some academics have questioned whether research is
essential to teaching at HE level. The answer is yes. It is
vital that students are exposed to the research of their
tutors and engage in research in their own right as part of
HE pedagogy. This is what distinguishes higher education
from further education.
However, higher education institutions need to define
for themselves and promote the linkages between research
and teaching. The University College has done this in its
Research Strategy. However, its success rested on the fact
that it was directly aligned with the institution’s historic
focus on teaching, valuing research specifically because it
underpins teaching. The ‘SandRA’ diagram depicted this
visually, but allowed staff and disciplines to interpret it to
suit their own practice.This gave the strategy legitimacy
within the accepted social order of the institution.
Given the impending withdrawal of most public funding
for higher education – in the past, the key external driver
of internal policy-making – each HEI needs to find and
fund a model that ensures high quality provision and is
appropriate to its culture and mission.
Pedagogies
Research supervision as apprenticeship
June Boyce-Tillman, University of Winchester
Further reading
Some of this material was previously published in Couper, P. and
Stoakes, G. (2011) Introducing ‘SandRA’: Visual representation of the
Research-Teaching Nexus as a tool in the Dissemination of a New
Research Strategy, Higher Education Quarterly, 65 (1), pp. 94–105.
© 2010 The Authors. Higher Education Quarterly © 2010 Blackwell
Publishing Ltd.
Beaty, L. ‘Links between teaching and research’ Presentation to the
HEFCE annual conference, 14–15 April 2005.
Bence, V. and Oppenheim, C. (2005), The evolution of the UK’s Research
Assessment Exercise: Publications, performance and perceptions,
Journal of Educational Administration and History 37 (2): pp. 137–155.
Breen, R. and Lindsay, R. (1999) Academic research and student
motivation, Studies in Higher Education, 24, pp. 75–93.
Brew, A. (2006) Research and Teaching: Bridging the Divide (Basingstoke,
Palgrave Macmillan.)
Brew, A. (2003) Teaching and research: new relationships and their
implications for inquiry-based teaching and learning in higher
education, Higher Education Research & Development, 22, pp. 3–18.
Brown, R. ‘Introductory plenary opening remarks’ Unpublished address
delivered at the Higher Education Academy conference, ‘The
teaching and research relationship: developing institutional policy
and practice’, 8 November 2005.
Coate, K., Barnett, R. and Williams, G. (2001) Relationships between
teaching and research in Higher Education in England, Higher
Education Quarterly 55, pp. 58–174.
Gibbs, G. (2002), Institutional strategies for linking research and
teaching, Exchange, 3, pp. 8–11.
Hattie, J. and Marsh, H.W. (1996) The relationship between research
and teaching: a meta-analysis, Review of Educational Research, 66,
pp. 507–542.
Henkel, M. (2004) Teaching and research: the idea of a nexus, Higher
Education Management and Policy, 16, pp. 19–30.
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (2002)
Report on the Research Assessment Exercise. Results of the RAE 2001.
Jenkins, A. (2004) A Guide to the Research Evidence on Teaching-Research
Relations (Higher Education Academy.)
Jenkins, A. and Healey, M. (2005) Institutional Strategies to link
teaching and research (Higher Education Academy).
Jenson, J. J. (1988) Research and teaching in the universities of
Denmark: does such an interplay really exist? Higher Education,
17, pp. 17–26.
J. M. Consulting & Associates (2000) Interactions between research,
teaching and other academic activities: report for HEFCE Higher
Education Consulting Group.
McNay, I. (1998) The paradoxes of research assessment and funding,
in M. Henkel and B. Little (eds.), Changing Relationships between
higher education and the state, London, Jessica Kingsley, pp. 191–203.
Lee, A. and Boud, D. (2003) Writing Group, Change and Academic
Identity: research development as local practice Studies in Higher
Education, 28 (2), p. 189.
Locke, W. (2004) Integrating research and teaching strategies:
implications for institutional management and leadership in the
United Kingdom, Higher Education Management &Policy, 16 (3),
p. 103.
McLean, M. & Barker, H. (2004) Students making progress and the
‘research-teaching nexus’ debate, Teaching in Higher Education, 9,
pp. 407–429.
Neumann, R. (1994) The teaching-research nexus: applying a framework
to university students’ learning experiences, European Journal of
Education, 29, pp. 323–338.
Newby, H. ‘Developing a strategic view of higher education over the next
10 years’ Unpublished keynote address to the HEFC annual
conference, UMIST 18 April 2002.
Prosser, M. Foreword to Jenkins, A. and Healey, M. (2005) Institutional
trategies to link teaching and research, The Higher Education
Academy, p. 3.
RAE (2008) Panel Criteria and Working Methods.
Robertson, J. (2007) Beyond the ‘research/teaching nexus’: exploring the
complexity of academic experience. Studies in Higher Education, 32,
pp. 541–556.
Schofield, A. (2011) Getting to Grips with Research & Knowledge Transfer
Leadership Foundation for Higher Education/Committee of
University Chairs, p. 6.
Tapper, T. and Salter, B. (2002) The Politics of Governance in Higher
Education: The Case of Research Assessment Exercises. OxCHEPS
occasional paper no. 6. Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy
Studies.
UCP Marjon, Research Strategy, 2004–2009.
Verburgh, A., Elen, J. and Lindblom-Ylänne, S. (2007), Investigating
the myth of the relationship between teaching and research in higher
education: a review of empirical research. Studies in the Philosophy of
Education 26, pp. 449–465.
Zetter, R. (2002) Making the departmental link between research and
teaching, Exchange, 3, pp. 12–14.
16
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Introduction
The process of research supervision is a process of guiding
a candidate to a level where they can be an academic leader,
possessing skills of programme leadership, innovation,
and research project leadership including selection of
appropriate methodologies. However, this process is often
done in relative isolation, leaving the candidate alone for
a great deal of the time. The process includes a number
of important stages including the moment when the
candidate can claim their own personal authority over
their subject. Much of the practice in this area is dictated
by tradition and there has been little work to document and
apply strategies to inform practice.
The Field
In many HE institutions the process of supervision of
doctoral theses is not included in teaching and learning
and is hived off into the area called research; but the
process of running a research project or creating a work
of art is very different from the process of doctoral
supervision. The argument set out in this chapter is that
this is a distinctive and special form of teaching that is
as yet under-researched. It will end with suggestions for
three research projects which could lead to more researchinformed teaching in this area.
The pattern of research supervision with a small group
of people or a single person who is in close touch with a
single person is one of the last remaining examples of the
apprenticeship model of teaching. In the Middle Ages
this took 4–6 years (the standard length of a part-time
supervision is up to 7 years). It was a structured process of
17
initiation into a set of competencies with certain marked
stages along the way. The current university system sees
students through the stages of Bachelor’s, Master’s and
Doctorate – the equivalent of apprentice, journeyman and
master. In the process of supervision a student moves to
the position of the master and the process of supervision
is initiation into the processes of being an authority in
a particular field. Indeed the three phases might also be
locked on to Higher Education programmes in a way that
sees doctoral supervision as apprenticeship, post-doctoral
fellowship as journeyman and professorship as master.
Even so, however we map these stages on to those of the
medieval craft guilds, the processes of supervision are
closer to this model of teaching (to some extent preserved
in universities like Oxford in the form of individual
tutorials) than to the one developed in the school system
of class teaching to groups of at least 20 or 30 in size
(although it might include such sessions as some points
in it). But in the current political climate apprenticeships
are more often linked with non-graduate employment
and practical skills. Following this line, in doctoral
programmes the pedagogical link lies with Professional
Doctorates rather than PhDs. Here they become an
initiation into a leadership role in a particular profession
rather than into the profession of Higher Education.
Pedagogies
The Implications of the apprenticeship model
To understand that this is a process of initiation is to
be able to deconstruct the process of supervision into
phenomenological domains and stages of competency and
then to look at appropriate strategies for use in this 7 year
initiation process. It raises a number of possibilities:
• The authority of the supervisor in the chosen field and
their keeping this authority up-to-date becomes highly
significant.
• The process of initiation into various methodologies
becomes important to the process. The supervisor needs
to reveal their own processes to students so that their
own ‘craft competency’ is apparent to the apprentice.
I, for example, often ask for advice in making choices in
my own compositions which I am working on when a
composition student arrives.
• There need to be projects in which apprentice and
supervisor work alongside one another in this process.
• The student needs to be aware of the value systems
operating in their chosen field which would include
standard ethical procedures and the mores of the chosen
field – what is assumed, what practices are accepted?
• The upgrade from master’s level to doctoral level should
mark the cusp of the student starting to claim authority
status, and evidence of the beginning of this needs to be
present in this process.
• There needs to be a gradual change of relationship after
this process which can have emotional elements within
it for both the supervisor and student.
18
• The thesis in this model assumes the nature of something like the Master Song in Wagner’s Mastersingers
– the test piece for the entry into the guild community
– and the supervisor needs to communicate and embody
the rules that govern this entry.
Research informed supervisory training
This gives us a way of focussing research into the processes
involved in supervision. At Winchester University we
have validated a Postgraduate Certificate in postgraduate
research Supervision. This certificate, based on the
research of Professor Pat Cryer, sees that supervisors
require three nodes of expertise – knowledge, skills and
values. Knowledge is located in the areas of regulations on
research supervision of the accrediting institution, national
codes of practice and policy documents and high profile
supervisory issues. Skills include:
• Playing an appropriate part in ensuring that the student,
the supervisor, supervisory team and research topic are
suitably matched.
• Guiding the student in developing a research proposal.
• Agreeing an appropriate research supervisory team and
process.
• Using an appropriate range of teaching and supervisory
skills.
• Providing appropriate support on academic and pastoral
issues.
• Using an appropriate range of methods to monitor and
assess.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
• Reflecting on their own practice, assessing and
planning for their future needs.
The node of values includes commitment to/concern for:
• Student development and achievement.
• Student progress towards independence.
• Ethical issues.
• Equal opportunities.
• One’s own scholarship, academic excellence
and integrity.
• Working with and learning from colleagues.
• Continuing reflection on one’s own professional
practice.
There is valuable research to be done in the best ways
of initiating supervisors into these nodes as each of
the three can be taught and assessed through different
pedagogic strategies.
Collecting data
This Postgraduate Certificate is assessed primarily by
portfolio which can include:
• Reports from shadowing of and interviews with
experienced staff (and possibly students).
• Appropriate reading, plus other items as appropriate.
• Evidence of grasp of regulations.
• Evidence of postgraduate supervision e.g. an account of
a session shadowing a supervision with critical analysis.
19
This evidence can be:
• Registration form, showing division of duties among
supervisory team such as the relationship of all
individuals, indicating respective responsibilities and
how the team will interrelate.
• A nnual report forms through to upgrade and
examination.
• Supervision Record Sheets (showing attendance at
supervisions, etc).
• Short CV showing expertise in relation to disciplines
and transferable skills.
• Email correspondence with students where this relates
to knowledge, skills or values.
• Slides from PowerPoints, etc, demonstrating input to
presentations.
• Records of supervisory sessions.
• Email correspondence with tutors.
• Paperwork relating to committee participation.
• Solicited references – to be used sparingly.
• Documented observations from shadowing experienced
staff.
• Quotations from interviews with staff and students.
• One minute video or audio clips.
• Extracts from literature.
Pedagogies
This assessment by portfolio will naturally generate
material not only to assess the potential supervisor but
also to provide data for research into the processes of
supervision. In the area of training supervisors there
is further work to be done on pedagogical strategies
which in Winchester has included:
• Tradition.
• Mentoring.
• Intensive course.
• Introduction to regulations.
• Creating regulations.
• Role playing.
• Online tests.
Further areas of research are continuing training,
research leadership and the place of formal
qualification within it.
data to produce the key themes. These at present include:
• How far can other ways of knowing from the purely
rational be validated at doctoral level?
• How far can the traditional shape of a thesis be
challenged and expanded?
• How far does a whole thesis have to be in a
permanent form?
• How much text should accompany the artefacts?
• What methodologies are most appropriate for
practice-as-research?
• What is the relationship between a PhD and Prof
Doc in this area?
• How are set criteria applied for practice projects?
It is hoped that this work will provide a useful researchinformed guide to this area of practice.
Practice-based doctoral programmes
These programmes have an extra area of expertise
– insight and understanding of the developing
area of practice-as-research. In a Palatine and
University teaching and learning funded project we
are investigating supervisory practices in this area.
Here we are examining the three areas – knowledge
of the regulatory procedures and practices which
are developing in this area, investigation into the
theorising in this field and case studies on audio
and videotape of particular projects in a variety of
institutions. Grounded Theory is being used on this
Conclusion
Here I have put the case for supervision being a
particular form of teaching/initiation based on medieval
models of apprenticeship. It identifies a need for research
into the area which has been largely dominated by
tradition passed from generation to generation by
processes of mentoring and observation. It identifies a
need for deconstructing the process and constructing a
training programme for supervisors based on research
into the evolved doctoral experience and what it can
offer to supervisee, supervisor and the wider knowledge
society. The use of portfolio as a means of assessment
on such a programme will enable an on-going process
20
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
of data collection in this area. Formal programmes
such as the one at Winchester University into practiceled doctorates initiate programmes of data collection
that can be analysed by means of grounded theory.
If such work is collected and collated (by the CREST
community) we shall come closer to a climate of doctoral
supervision which is informed by research. Work in this
area will enable such data to be brought together from
a variety of institutions and analysed for the collective
benefit of participants and the HE sector. Modes of
supervision for Professional Doctorates may also be
distinctively different. This is a rich area of research that
will ensure that we enable doctoral candidates to move
from a position of apprentices to one of authority in the
smoothest possible way.
21
Pedagogies
Critical Commentary, publishing and research-led teaching
Yahya Al-Nakeeb and John Howard, Newman University College
The process of publishing a piece of work can be
a long, arduous, and ultimately – despite the selfsatisfying moment when your name appears in print
– humbling experience. It is also, in its way, a special
skill, operating adjacent to, but not directly within, a
traditional undergraduate or graduate degree. While
in an increasingly competitive academic market, many
PhD students enter the workplace with at least one
publication imminent, or preferably already ‘in print’, yet
many students are not often exposed to the formal peer
review process. Tutors will, of course, review projects and
read submitted essays and exams and provide feedback
throughout a degree; however, the expectations of these
pieces of work – their mastery of the chosen subject,
engagement with primary and secondary sources, the
quality of the written piece – is different to what is
expected of a published contribution to the collective body
of academic thought.
Critical Commentary
The peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journal, Critical
Commentary, has been published by Newman University
College since 2007. Created to present research-based
articles of exceptional quality written by its undergraduate
and postgraduate research students, the development
opportunities provided by the journal for students at all
levels have been identified by the QAA as an example
of particularly good practice in the Higher Education
sector. Critical Commentary is currently published in both
hard copy and electronic formats. All issues can be read
online or downloaded as open source material. Critical
22
Commentary is also deposited in the British Library and
the five Legal Deposit Libraries of the United Kingdom
and the Republic of Ireland. In 2011 the Consortium for
Research Excellence, Support and Training (CREST) and
a number of its partner institutions chose to give their
support to the journal, expanding the Editorial Board and
body of specialist research showcased within the journal
as well as ensuring wider student access to the journal as a
forum for research publication and experiential learning.
Aspiring researchers at all levels of study submitting
material for the journal are now exposed to a national
network of critics; they run the full gamut of peer
review. Submitted articles are scrutinized by at least two
reviewers possessing suitable expertise. If reviewers are
not in agreement over their recommendations, further
reviewers are employed. The authors are advised of the
outcome, and receive a copy of the reviewers’ comments.
Many articles are rejected or returned for extensive
reworking, and those that are accepted only appear in
print after a series of discussions and revisions with
colleagues within Newman University College and, from
2011, across the CREST network of researchers.
The published output
The iterative, collaborative nature of peer review provides
a valuable opportunity for the aspiring writer to engage
with the wider academic community at an advanced
level. The end product, whatever the format, passes back
and forth numerous times between editors, reviewers
and authors. Just when the end is near, another set of
corrections or questions may require the author to rethink
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
their original premise, or to critique and incorporate
a new body of theory or thought into what seems like
a ‘final’ output.
This is particularly the case with an interdisciplinary
journal; one does not know how another researcher
approaching a complementary problem from a completely
different angle might be inspired by a colleague’s work.
That said, the art of articulating complex and innovative
research, not just to one’s immediate colleagues within a
faculty or discipline, but to a wider audience of researchers,
is a vital skill. It requires careful consideration and
development as contexts shift to accommodate the everexpanding breadth of collective knowledge.
Ultimately the publishing process itself almost becomes
paramount, laying the scene for the next undertaking:
the self-knowledge and confidence to reconsider and
reconstitute hard-fought, difficult arguments becomes an
acquired skill applicable beyond the academy. And once
published, somewhere in a library or, more likely, at a
computer, a reader may take up an idea, or some fragment
of an idea, and the argument extends. There is no such
thing as static or safe knowledge, and once a student
realises this, it is bound to change how they approach any
number of problems in study, work and life.
23
Pedagogies
Assessment feedback and learning skills:
A research project to improve development and policy practice
Nicky Hunter, Jane Hill and Sarah Gabbitas, Harper Adams University College
Assessment and feedback are recognised as critical
drivers of the student learning experience (Nichols
el al, 2007). Recent surveys by the National Union
of Students and studies by many Higher Education
Institutions have identified that there are widespread
difficulties experienced by students with both the
quality and quantity of feedback offered by student
assessments. In order to investigate and identify the
issues and recommend suitable solutions at Harper
Adams University College (HAUC), Aspire (a HEFCEfunded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning)
Fellowship supported-research was instigated in
September 2009. The study examined the range of
formative assessment feedback from 258 assignments
across College, and has shown a wide variety of feedback
styles and methods of assessment feedback delivery.
The students’ response to the feedback given by staff
has been varied throughout the range of assessments
observed, but the majority of students were positive
about the feedback they received and most responded
to constructive comments to give evidence that they
feedforward with their educational skills. The key issues
identified relating to feedback were timeliness, legibility
and the lack of constructive, personal comments in some
cases. Recommendations for a College policy on guidance
on effective feedback for staff and students were proposed
and, in large part, adopted in the institution’s operational
assessment policy. As a result of the research findings,
some staff have addressed the need to revise the mode of
assessment for their assignments in order to give more
effective feedback and as a result, the quality of delivery
has been improved and the student learning experience
enhanced.
• A ssess the quantity of feedback (too much/too little?).
• A ssess the quality of feedback (does this help the
students progress and is it supportive?).
• Explore the range of support processes that students
experience following the launch of assignment work
What is feedback?
Academic feedback may be defined simply as the process
of staff providing written and/or verbal constructive,
encouraging comments to students on the quality and
quantity of their submitted work. The comments should
include any corrections and detail on how the work could
have been improved, so the students can act positively
and develop future work. Feedback should also clarify
the mark or grade awarded for the work. Research studies
of feedback fall into two main areas: those projects
and surveys undertaken by HE institutions, either
individually or as part of collaborative work with others,
and the research completed by the National Union of
Students (NUS), which is clearly more user-focused.
Within HE research a wide range of investigations
have taken place, some of which have been more focused
on the methods of giving feedback, rather than the
effectiveness of feedback to the students. Some research
has been more subject or cohort specific and therefore
evaluation of the quantity and quality of feedback may be
less appropriate and generic to the HE student population
as a whole. Interesting and valuable research on feedback
has been commissioned by the National Union of
Students, which has included a large number and range
of students in the surveys across several Universities in
the UK. National Students Surveys highlight general
24
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
25
Rationale for the research
The variability in the quality, quantity and timeliness of
feedback in supporting a student’s learning and learning
skills has been identified both nationally through the
National Students Survey and also through annual course
monitoring for all courses at HAUC. By assessing the
range and quality of feedback across this institution, the
value of the feedback in enabling students to feedforward
was evaluated. The information collected provided an
essential insight for the Learner Support Team on how
staff can better support students with a Specific Learning
Difficulty, particularly the high proportion of dyslexic
students (c 16%) which HAUC enrols. With increased
awareness and improved assessment of students entering
Higher Education with Specific Learning Difficulties, it
is becoming more important that any feedback given by
teaching staff addresses the specific learning needs of
individual students. For example, a student may need to
use a text reader and therefore the feedback needs to be in a
digital format for accessibility.
The proposed research programme aims were to:
and if this enhances the work they submit.
• A ssess the timeliness of feedback in allowing the
students to improve other work submitted for
formative assessment.
dissatisfaction with ‘complaints of ambiguity, lateness
and negativity’ (NUS 2008), with 57% of students in
most University departments expressing dissatisfaction
with the standard of feedback they are receiving. In
response the NUS produced a briefing paper which
outlines the ten principles of good feedback practice
which suggested that feedback should:
• Be for learning, not just of learning
• Be a continuous process
• Be timely
• Relate to clear criteria
• Be constructive
• Be legible and clear
• Be provided on exams
• Include self-assessment and peer-to-peer feedback
• Be accessible to all students
• Be flexible and suited to students’ needs
Methodology
A sample of students from all courses and levels were
selected at random and invited to attend a briefing
session to explain the nature of the research and the
benefits to students, staff and the institution. All
students who attended the meeting were asked to
complete a questionnaire on their prior experience of
feedback, what they preferred in feedback and whether
they did anything about the comments made (i.e. how
they responded to feedback). This was used as a baseline
to ascertain the prior use of feedback in the sample set
of students.
Pedagogies
Fig 1: Shows that more than two
thirds of students questioned
have found feedback helpful in
improving future work.
Students were assured that all student names, their
courses, module details and teaching staff would be
anonymous and all contact with the students complied
with the Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research
(2004). Lecturing staff were not informed that the
project on feedback was taking place, in order to avoid
any bias over the research period.
The feedback sheet for formative assignments
Students involved in the research were asked to submit
their individual marked formative assignments and to
complete a feedback questionnaire to give a considered
response and to reflect on the staff feedback on each
of their module assignments. Assignments submitted
were then recorded on a spreadsheet and copies taken
of staff comments, after which the work was returned to
the students.
Feedback from the focus groups
Students were invited to attend one of two lunchtime
focus group sessions. This was to evaluate the students’
use of the feedback sheet and any issues regarding
feedback they wanted to discuss or appeared to be
coming from their responses from the questionnaires
they had already completed and submitted. The
discussions were open and forthright and all students
were actively involved in the dialogue and issues raised.
There was general agreement on most of the points
considered.
26
One to one interviews
A total of ten students who had not attended the focus
group session were selected at random for one to one
interviews of 15 minutes with one of the research
team staff. Nine students attended and gave in depth
responses to questions about their individual feedback on
their assignments. Students were also asked more open
questions regarding their own ideas for improving the
feedback experience feedback generally within HAUC.
Impact of feedback on the students
It is evident from some of the research in this project
that the majority of students have developed competence
through supportive, effective feedback. The smaller size
and more focused education at HAUC could explain
the research results for the students showing a greater
response to feedforward and improve their skills
compared to those in other research studies.
The research showed that two thirds of the 248
students questioned have found feedback helpful in
improving future work (Figure 1).
Major issues for the students were related to
the illegibility of the feedback, timeliness and the
clarification in the allocation of marks. Students who
responded to feedback and developed further their
learning skills to feedforward have shown an educational
progression and development of intellectual maturity
throughout the year. However, it was noted that clearly
performance on some modules reflected the students’
confidence, competence and preference for certain
topic areas.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Students’ approach to staff for clarification of feedback
and support was variable and depended on the staffstudent relationships, as well as the availability of staff.
Some students were more focused on their grades when
work was returned, and if high enough would disregard
feedback accordingly, especially if it was very subject
related and cannot be used for other work. However,
there was concern that some first year students who were
repeatedly getting staff feedback about their ‘report writing
skills’, ‘insufficient detail/poor research material’ and/or
‘incorrect referencing’ were not responding by seeking the
solution to improve, or get the support or guidance to do so.
feedback translated if necessary, but they may have been
unaware that the less motivated or unsure students find
this approach difficult and it was very much dependent on
personal relationships. Students may also find it difficult
to approach staff to get information on how they could
improve their work if it is not given in the feedback. If
students only submit one assessment for a tutor, then
that tutor does not see any evidence of the effect of their
feedback. It is clear however, that where there are several
assignments (e.g. lab reports/practicals) that the effective
feedback from staff has motivated and improved the
learning skills of students.
Impact of feedback for teaching staff
Discussion with teaching colleagues has highlighted the
pressure staff are under to mark and provide effective
feedback, particularly to large groups of students in a
relatively short period of time. The HAUC return time
policy for marked work is 4 weeks, unless staff specify
that it will be longer for the larger groups of students.
A minority of staff consider that spending time writing
feedback is often wasted as it is not read, absorbed or acted
on by the students. There was excellent evidence of several
staff using proformas to complete feedback for the students
but there was little evidence that this was given before
work was submitted to help direct students’ work. There
was also variable evidence to how the mark/grade
was achieved and not all feedback sheets showed the
marking criteria.
Some staff, although aware of poor handwriting,
explained to students that they could come and get the
How has this research contributed to the development and
policy practice at Harper Adams University College?
This institutional research has been used to encourage
debate and inform policy development. As a result of
the research findings, information was disseminated
at a series of internal Learning and Teaching forums.
Examples of innovative assessment feedback methods
27
Pedagogies
have been showcased and as a consequence, some staff
have developed the use of formative e-assessments with
automated feedback and have applied on-line marking
using the Grademark tool. It has been proposed that
in the future, guidelines on the application and use
of formative feedback for both staff and students are
developed at HAUC.
Research recommendations
It is imperative that all HEIs develop a clear policy on
formative feedback for both staff and students. The
expectations for students and staff need to be clearly
outlined. It is also important to realise that the students
are not passive recipients of assessment activities and
feedback. If students are provided with useful, highquality feedback that supports effective student learning,
they can be motivated and feedforward and improve
both the depth of their knowledge, understanding and
advance their learning skills.
The researchers gratefully acknowledge the support
of Aspire Development Funding at Harper Adams
University College (a designated CETL institution).
28
Further reading
The Great NUS Feedback Amnesty. (2008) Available from:
www.resource.nusonline.co.uk/media/resource/HEFocus.pdf
National Student Survey. (2007) Available from:
www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2007/nss.htm
National Student Survey. (2008) Available from:
www.nus.org.uk/en/Campaigns/Higher-Education/Assessment
feedback-/
Nichols, D. (2007) Leader for REAP project at University of Strathclyde.
Available from: www.reap.ac.uk/index.html
Revised Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. (2004)
Available from: www.bera.ac.uk/publications/guidelines
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
29
Pedagogies
Capacity building for research-led teaching and teaching-led research:
The impact of confidence, career stage and other factors
Carol Callinan and John G. Sharp, Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln, UK
Brian Hemmings, Charles Sturt University, NSW, Australia
The identities of lecturers working in higher education
institutions are complex, contextualised and highly
dynamic. There is now a substantial body of literature
revealing how lecturers experience and understand
research and teaching in particular, with an emphasis in
some quarters on mastering and integrating each of these
successfully into various forms of research-led teaching
and teaching-led research. Within today’s changing
higher education landscape, however, pressures brought
about by increasing student numbers, widening access
and participation, and institutional, departmental and
personal expectations attached to research productivity
and teaching effectiveness can prove taxing, perhaps more
so for the Early Career Academic (ECA).
One factor that has been shown to mediate the amount
of time and attention devoted to the ‘core’ functions of
role is self-efficacy. Being in a position to ‘benchmark’
self-efficacy in relation to research, teaching and other
academic or service-related activities (e.g. reading and
writing for academic purposes, preparing, delivering and
assessing coursework, networking within and beyond
the institution) could prove advantageous to leaders,
managers and administrators for exploring and evaluating
institutional culture and initiating professional dialogue
with colleagues, ultimately assisting with the identification
of those areas in which professional development and
capacity building are required. In this article, the selfefficacy characteristics of 200 colleagues working across
four UK higher education institutions, with a focus on
ECAs relative to their more experienced counterparts, are
presented and discussed. This work was achieved using
a revised 70-item lecturer self-efficacy questionnaire
originally developed for use in the Australian higher
education sector by Hemmings and Kay (2009, 2010).
The revised 70-item lecturer self-efficacy questionnaire
developed by Hemmings and Kay (2009, 2010), like the
original, has a theoretical framework located in Bandura’s
social cognitive learning theory. Social cognitive learning
theory highlights the reciprocal interaction involved
between personal factors, environmental conditions
and behaviour when learning new skills. Within this
framework, the self-efficacy construct emerged to explain
the ways in which this could have a profound effect
on the activities that individuals choose to undertake,
the amount of time spent on or returning to them, and
their capability awareness in terms of how to organise,
manage and implement actions to reach a certain level of
performance. Perceptions of self-efficacy are also subject
to continual change in accordance with experiences.
Mastery experiences in particular provide a fundamental
platform for future development. Self-efficacy is therefore
an important construct in relation to ‘core’ function and
the wider development of academic identity, particularly
at the early stages of an academic career. As might be
expected, the self-efficacy construct is also closely related to
motivation and is influenced by both internal and external
drivers including confidence which provides a useful proxy
for its measurement.
30
background information from participants themselves,
as well as information about staff confidence in relation
to performing identified work-related tasks in the three
‘core’ functions of research, teaching and other academic
or service-related activities using a 10-point scale ranging
from 0 (low) to 9 (high). The final section considered the
amount of time spent on research, teaching and other
academic or service-related activities and the importance
of and satisfaction derived from each. Developed for use
in a different cultural context, necessary changes made
to the language and structure employed prompted a reassessment and re-evaluation of the instrument’s validity
and reliability as a whole. This work was undertaken
by distributing revised questionnaires to colleagues
across four purposively sampled UK higher education
institutions, each best described as teaching-focused but
with a strong commitment to promoting excellence in
research and scholarship. Together, these institutions
offered undergraduate and postgraduate courses mainly in
education, social sciences and the arts.
or other qualifications were registered on doctoral
programmes (PhD or EdD). A little under half (96, 48.0%)
of all participants were members of the Higher Education
Academy (HEA) and 87 (43.5%) considered themselves
to be research-active and regularly publishing at the
highest level.
Of the 72 ECAs involved, 27 (37.5%) were male and 45
(62.5%) were female (in proportion with the main sample).
Compared alongside their more experienced colleagues,
only 7 (9.7%) held doctoral level qualifications and only
22 (30.6%) considered themselves to be research-active
and regularly publishing. 12 (16.7%) were registered for
doctorates (in proportion with the main sample) but only
18 (25.0%) were members of the HEA.
The research instrument
The revised lecturer self-efficacy questionnaire used in
this study secured contextual data, including essential
Participants
Of the 200 participants involved, 77 were male (38.5%)
and 123 were female (61.5%). Employment ranged from
0 to over 20 years with a mean of 8.9. While the sample
included 5 newly appointed staff (2.5%), all could either be
described as ECAs with up to 5 years’ service (72, 36.0%)
or experienced, having worked for longer (128, 64.0%).
While the majority of staff had been formally educated to
Master’s level (126, 63.0%), 51 (25.5%) were in possession
of doctorates. 35 (17.5%) of those with Master’s, Bachelor’s
Time, importance and satisfaction
All participants were asked to indicate how much time they
felt they spent on each of the three ‘core’ functions. Across
the sample as a whole, this averaged out with mean values
of 12.1%, 57.1% and 30.8% for research, teaching and other
academic or service-related activities respectively. The
difference in time devoted to research for ECAs compared
with more experienced colleagues was negligible. However,
ECAs spent more time teaching (mean 61.4%) and less on
other academic or service-related activities (mean 27.2%).
When asked to consider which aspect of their work was
most important to them, the overwhelming majority of
participants indicated teaching (148, 74.0%). Research and
other academic or service-related activities lagged some
way behind in almost equal measure. Other academic or
service-related activities was considered least important
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
31
Pedagogies
over research was something of a surprise given the
importance attached to research across the sector and
each institution’s strong commitment to building upon
its own research profile. As was indicated in the written
comments collected during a staff development event at
one institution following completion of this study, the
impact of ‘administration’ was certainly implicated and
felt strongly:
(114, 57.0%). Interestingly, however, while broadly similar
numbers of participants indicated that teaching was also
the aspect of their work that they felt most satisfied with
(142, 71.0%), research was highlighted as the area perhaps
requiring most attention (120, 60.0%). A complete profile
is presented as shown (Table 1). Only 6 (8.3%) ECAs
considered research of most importance to them while 58
(80.6%) favoured teaching.
Confidence and resources
In many respects, the findings presented here, from
a sample of 200 participants working across four UK
higher education institutions offering courses mainly
in education, social sciences and the arts, were to be
expected, with teaching leading over other ‘core’ functions
in every respect (including confidence). Despite being
overwhelmingly voted of least importance, however, the
ascendancy of other academic or service-related activities
All
Research
The apparent tension between ‘core’ function and
‘administration’ was perhaps further reflected among those
participants who indicated that research was the one aspect
of work they were least satisfied with, given the amount
of time it required. However, it might also be true to say
that there has always existed a tension between research
Teaching
Other
None
Not sure
Most important
13 (6.5)
22 (11.0)
148 (74.0)
17 (8.5)
0 (0.0)
0 (0.0)
Least important
2 (1.0)
57 (28.5)
10 (5.0)
114 (57.0)
14 (7.0)
3 (1.5)
Most satisfied
5 (2.5)
27 (13.5)
142 (71.0)
23 (11.5)
0 (0.0)
3 (1.5)
Least satisfied
2 (1.0)
120 (60.0)
9 (4.5)
58 (29.0)
7 (3.5)
4 (2.0)
32
‘Time here is not normally an obstacle it’s all about
priorities and perceptions of what matters with regard to
your job.’
‘Issues relating to teaching and admin. are always given
institutional priority over any research strategy.’
Table 1 Frequencies and percentages of work aspect (n=200)
Aspect of work
and other ‘core’ functions and the extent to which these
compete for increasingly limited resources. Of course,
individual academic priorities are determined by a range
of factors including the values, attitudes and aspirations of
those already in post and the communities of practice and
cultures they seek to establish as much as by employer. As
indicated by one participant:
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Returning to ECAs, this study revealed some important
features worthy of particular note. Relative to others,
and in proportion to their more experienced colleagues,
participating ECAs:
is not known at this time. The implications of where
ECAs are located could, however, be of institutional
importance. It is worth remembering here too that
while ECAs undoubtedly contribute towards the culture
of the courses and departments in which they work,
they are also strongly influenced by them and respond
accordingly. Interestingly, while a clear relationship was
found between doctoral level qualifications, research
activity and publishing, and research confidence, these
associations were by no means perfect or exclusive
(e.g. 74.5% of all colleagues with doctorates considered
themselves to be research active and publishing compared
with 32.9% of all colleagues without). Nevertheless,
focusing attention on ECAs and their early induction and
professional development might provide a productive
means of challenging and changing prevailing culture.
It was also found that a larger proportion of ECAs
were attached to some courses in preference to others
and courses of initial teacher training in particular.
Whether this finding can be attributed to sampling or
some inherent characteristic of one course over another
Planning for the future
Moving from a discussion centred on ‘deficit’ to one of
development, there is an argument to be made for those
institutions with particular strengths in teaching but
who wish to continue to improve both their research
capacity and capability to concentrate their efforts on
research-led teaching and teaching-led research. As has
been demonstrated here, however, this may not prove as
easy to do as it is to say. Leaving aside national initiatives
emerging from the HEA and other organisations,
including Vitae, important though they be, such efforts
clearly require ‘local’ solutions as a matter of priority,
particularly in the first instance. In the words of one
colleague who offered comment, the real benefit of this
33
Pedagogies
• presented fewer doctoral level qualifications.
• were not as research-active and engaged in publishing.
• were less likely to be members of the HEA.
• devoted more time to teaching than any other ‘core’
function (marginally in the case of research).
• exhibited lower levels of confidence across all scales
and subscales of the lecturer self-efficacy questionnaire
(though almost exactly similar in profile).
approach to induction and professional development
was clear:
‘You need to be smart at aligning your research to other
activities. I started off with someone holding my hand,
taking an interest, seeing some potential and actually
encouraging me to go forward. This was a pivotal
moment for me in terms of confidence building. I got
a bit of money, wrote a report, added the citation to my
CV and moved forward.’
To this end, and like those institutions participating here
which have already begun moving in such directions,
strategies might include:
• Establishing an agreed institutional understanding
and definition of research and what it means to be a
research-er and research-active as well as considering
the full role of the lecturer in higher education.
• Developing a common understanding of the
widespread pedagogical, curricular and other benefits
of research-led teaching and teaching-led research.
• Undertaking a comprehensive audit of research
aspiration, perceived barriers to research, research
opportunities, research training requirements and
available research expertise.
• Identifying and developing an internal network of
mentors, role models, common interest groups and
critical friends particularly, though not exclusively,
for ECAs.
34
• Helping individuals and groups take ownership of
research to develop their own research identities in the
fields of interest to them.
• Supporting colleagues on the doctoral trail or looking to
recruit and retain, where appropriate, suitably qualified
research-active staff who understand the demands of
working in high teaching institutions (as was the
case here).
• I ncreasing expectation associated with research so that
initial steps follow a pathway from seminar presentations
to conference contributions to publications or validation
and dissemination by other appropriate means for
exhibitions and performances.
• I ncreasing awareness of the potential benefits
undertaking and disseminating research can bring in
terms of research environment, reputation, significance
and esteem internally and externally.
• Supporting academic writing to improve upon the
quality, quantity and level of measurable research
outputs, particularly those of national and international
significance and which demonstrate impact.
• Finding and supporting an appropriate balance of
workload in relation to research, teaching and other
academic or service-related activities.
• I ntegrating and embedding all of the above into learning,
teaching and research strategies and disseminating ‘good
practice’ across departments and institutions.
Returning to the theoretical framework of social
cognitive learning theory outlined earlier, any
workplace-based intervention aligning itself with
self-efficacy arguably needs to highlight low threat
experiences which lead to task mastery, provide
appropriate modelling of work-related tasks, and give
timely and constructive feedback to those involved
(while avoiding the promotion of over-confidence
which can lead to complacency and poor performance).
While it would be foolish, of course, to consider
generalising beyond the limitations of this single study,
institutions and departments of similar composition
which offer similar provision and which might ‘see’
something of themselves here might wish to take note;
those with other concerns (for instance, institutions
where researchers may be very strong in terms of
their international profile, but who lack confidence
in teaching) could also use the survey to assess levels
of self-efficacy, and improve training and other
opportunities for staff and students accordingly. What
has been achieved here is a ‘benchmarking initiative’,
open to constructive comment and criticism, against
which comparative work can be undertaken in the true
spirit of institutional collaboration and co-operation.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
35
Further reading
Åkerlind, G. S. (2008) An academic perspective on research and being a
researcher: an integration of the literature. Studies in Higher
Education, 33(1), pp. 17–31.
Al-Nakeeb, Y. (2007) Leading change in developing research and
scholarship: the case of a teaching intensive institution.
In: S. Marshal (ed.) Strategic leadership of change in higher education:
what’s new? London: Routledge. pp. 79–92.
Bandura, A. (1993) Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and
functioning. Educational Psychologist, 28, pp. 117–148.
Bandura, A. (1997) Self-efficacy: the exercise of control. New York, NY:
W.H. Freeman.
Bandura, A. (2001) Social cognitive theory: an agentive perspective.
Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), pp. 1–26.
Brew, A. (2006) Research and teaching: beyond the divide.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Couper, P. and Stoakes, G. (2011) Introducing ‘SandDRA’: visual
representation of the research-teaching nexus as a tool in the
dissemination of a new research strategy. Higher Education Quarterly,
65(1), pp. 94–105.
Clegg, S. (2008) Academic identities under threat? British Educational
Research Journal, 34(3), pp. 329–345.
Harley (2002) The impact of research selectivity on academic work and
identity in UK universities. Studies in Higher Education, 27(2),
pp. 187–205.
Hattie, J. and Marsh, H.W. (1996) The relationship between research and
teaching: a meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 66(4),
pp. 507–542.
Hemmings, B. and Hill, D. (2009) The development of lecturer research
expertise: towards a unifying model. Issues in Educational Research,
19(1), pp. 14–24.
Hemmings, B. and Kay, R. (2009) Lecturer self-efficacy: its related
dimensions and the influences of gender and qualifications. Issues in
Educational Research, 19(3), pp. 243–254.
Hemmings, B. and Kay, R. (2010) Research self-efficacy, publication
output and early career development. International Journal of
Educational Management, 24(7), pp. 562–574.
Hemmings, B., Kay, R., Sharp, J. and Taylor, C. (in press) A transnational comparison of lecturer self-efficacy. Journal of Further and
Higher Education.
Henkel, M. (2005) Academic identity and autonomy in a changing
policy environment. Higher Education, 49(1&2), pp. 155–176.
Pedagogies
Bishop Grosseteste
University College
Jenkins, A. (2004) A guide to the research evidence on teaching-research
relations. York: HEA.
Jenkins, A. and Zetter, R. (2003) Linking research and teaching in
departments. York: Learning and Teaching Support Network.
Jenkins, A. and Healey, M. (2005) Institutional strategies to link teaching
and research. York: HEA.
Jenkins, A., Healey, M. and Zetter, R. (2007) Linking teaching and
research in disciplines and departments. York: HEA.
Lucas, L. (2007) Research and teaching work within university
education departments: fragmentation or integration? Journal of
urther and Higher Education, 31(1), pp. 17–19.
Marsh, H.W. and Hattie, J. (2002) The relation between research
productivity and teaching effectiveness. Journal of Higher Education,
73(5), pp. 603–641.
Robertson, J. (2007) Beyond the ‘research/teaching’ nexus: exploring the
complexity of academic experience. Studies in Higher Education, 35(5),
pp. 541–556.
Robertson, J. and Bond, C. (2001) Experiences of the relation between
teaching and research: what do academics value? Higher Education
Research and Development, 20(1), pp. 5–19.
Rowland, S. (2002) Overcoming fragmentation in professional life: the
challenge for academic development. Higher Education Quarterly,
56(1), pp. 52–64.
Schunk, D.H. (1991) Self-efficacy and academic motivation. Educational
Psychologist, 26, pp. 207–231.
Sharp, J.G., Hemmings, B., Kay, R. and Callinan, C. (in press) An
application of the revised ‘Lecturer Self-Efficacy Questionnaire’.
Journal of Further and Higher Education.
Taylor, P. (1999) Making sense of academic life: academics, universities and
change. Buckingham: OUP.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice. Boston, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Zimmerman, B.J. (2002) Becoming a self-regulated learner: an overview.
Theory into Practice, 41, pp. 64–70.
36
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
37
Pedagogies
Disciplines
2
38
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Music, research and self-efficacy in Higher Education
Laura Ritchie, University of Chichester
This chapter details how my research into self-efficacy –
personal beliefs about the capability that an individual
has to carry out a specific task (Bandura, 1977; 1986) – in
professional musical education has shaped my teaching,
becoming central to the student experience through integration into current coursework. Findings have shaped
the adopted methods and become the backbone for
taught content.
My doctoral research on self-efficacy took forward ideas
presented by Schunk (1996), differentiating self-efficacy
beliefs within a domain for learning and performing,
developing and validating specific research tools in order to
separately assess self-efficacy for performing and learning
in the field of music. Self-efficacy beliefs are founded on a
mixture of achieved experiences, observing other people
in a similar situation, verbal influences from others about
achieving the task, and personal physical signals such as a
racing heartbeat or cold hands.
For my research project, self-efficacy beliefs were
identified and explored by involving a range of musicians
from complementary disciplines, and wider relationships
with factors such as self-regulated learning, musical skills
and attributes. Other aspects of student’s lives were also
considered. (see Ritchie, 2011). Implicit in this approach
was an awareness of the existence and malleability of
these beliefs for different tasks applied to different stages
of learning. For example, results from a study carried out
with school children at the beginning stages of learning
showed that prior to a musical experience, self-efficacy was
associated with other tasks that students perceived to be
similar. At university level, there was a surprising lack of
correlation between students’ use of self-regulated learning
and their self-efficacy for learning beliefs. The changeable
nature of self-efficacy was demonstrated when students
undertook an audition experience, as detailed below.
An ideal setting for exploring, and for developing selfefficacy beliefs, is one where tasks are routinely repeated
and examined. Concentrated, disciplined and measured
understanding of a subject occurs within university
education, where students choose to specialise in a
particular subject. Students pursue and ‘master’ tasks in
both assessed and un-assessed settings. They regularly
watch peers and receive feedback and advice about their
own capabilities, and (ideally) apply this criticism and selfreflection to future tasks and experiences – in work and/or
in future academic assessments. My role as both lecturer
and course author thus allowed me to involve students and
to adapt the content of the taught provision in the light of
their feedback and my own research.
39
Disciplines
Case study
The complexity underlying the formation of self-efficacy
beliefs depends on a mixture of skills, experience and
other influences. This study used experienced musicians to
further examine how self-efficacy scores were affected by
incorporating a familiar task in a novel physical situation.
MA students, who were all skilled performers, with a first
degree involving instrumental or vocal performance, met
weekly for a performance class as part of their studies. For
one of the sessions the class of eight students agreed to
prepare extracts of up to five minutes from two contrasting
pieces that demonstrated their technical and musical
Top: Workshop in a primary
school: Laura Ritchie and a year
1 child at Jessie Young Husband
Primary School, Chichester
Bottom: Dave Whitehead
demonstrating a vocal lesson
to Hailey Pearce and fellow
students.
40
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
ability for a mock audition that would be videoed. Before
the class began each person was asked to complete the
‘Self-efficacy for musical performing questionnaire’ and
to record any comments describing how they felt prior to
the audition experience. This study replicated an earlier
experiment with professional performers who were in a
novel high-pressure performing situation (See Ritchie,
2011); in this instance there had been notable contrasts
between the students’ and professionals’ scores.
The student sample comprised three men and five
women who specialised in, respectively: guitar, viola,
French horn, piano, trumpet, oboe, and voice (2). The selfefficacy for performing scores, collected just prior to the
audition, ranged from 27 to 55, out of a maximum score of
63. These were notably lower than the average scores from
the 250 conservatory and university students examined
in other studies throughout my doctoral research using
the same questionnaire, and also from the professional
musicians examined in a comparable case study to these
MA students. The standard deviation is also much larger
than with professional musicians in a similar situation,
implying a diversity of self-efficacy beliefs among the
student participants. In other words, the difference
between the students and the professionals sampled was
not the performers’ musical level, but their ability to cope
with the unfamiliar performance context.
The lower scores in this case study demonstrate that
self-efficacy measurements cannot be represented on a
simple linear scale that might equate to skill level, but
rather that each measurement of self-efficacy is taskspecific, and that if an element of the task presents a
significant challenge for the musician, then this will
affect self-efficacy beliefs. Theoretically, the influence of
familiarity with the setting for the task also impacts the
outcome achieved and the predictive nature of self-efficacy
for that situation. In this instance the perceived challenge
of the situation was demonstrated by the MA students’
comments that they were nervous specifically ‘because
of the pressure of an audition’ situation and ‘judgements
made by auditioners,’ as opposed to the technical musical
challenges. At professional levels, musicians have
recognised the influence of extra-musical factors and
reported adopting various coping strategies to deal with
the associated pressures of performing (Hallam, 2001;
MacNamara et al, 2006).
This exercise in measurement served to illustrate that
self-efficacy could be influenced by a task that incorporated
a new challenge, but that the aspect of ‘challenge’ does
not need to be directly associated with carrying out the
task (e.g. playing the instrument) to affect the scores.
The ‘challenge’ in these examples was not musical, but
contextual. Comparing the MA students’ scores with those
of the professionals illustrates that, with appropriate selfawareness and training, it is possible to have a new, highpressure situation while retaining high self-efficacy scores.
41
Disciplines
Informing the performance curriculum
This case study illustrated that self-efficacy is not a simply
defined measurement, but that it depends on a number of
factors. It is therefore essential for musicians to accumulate
experience in appropriately diverse settings, otherwise
there is a risk that self-efficacy will be low and performance
Assembly to hear a concert
presented by the second year
University of Chichester IVT
students after an afternoon of
and attainment will suffer. The implication for those
still in training is to make sure that they are prepared
with the musical skills and experience with the wider
factors that could be involved in the tasks they are likely
to encounter in a professional setting. This interaction
of self-efficacy and the context presented by performing
situations, and the established link with performing,
demonstrates the importance of fostering these beliefs
as part of skilled musical development.
The pedagogic provision – Instrumental or Vocal
Teaching (IVT) – that grew out of this research at the
University of Chichester, was informed and designed
around my research into the self-efficacy beliefs of music
students (see Ritchie and Williamon, 2011a, 2011b).
In the final-year, students on the course undertake a
module on one-to-one teaching, which is designed to
explore the role self-efficacy plays and to build a series of
positive and successful teaching (mastery) experiences.
Students are presented with a theoretical framework
that they then experiment with and explore within the
safe setting of the classroom. In conjunction with a
thorough awareness and understanding of self-efficacy
beliefs, and practical implementation of self-regulated
learning strategies, they develop and leave with a
transferable set of skills born of practical achievements
and experiences, and, ultimately the confidence to
continue into a successful future.
Students begin to explore the relationship of the
personal, behavioural, and environmental components
of everyday life (as introduced by Bandura [1986]) to
the class situation within that specific lecture, and
then to teaching situations in order to understand their
role within the teaching dynamic. For example, using
the classroom setting, students experiment with each
element, considering whether or not they can alter
or influence it. This often leads to a discussion of the
understanding of what is known and unknown – where
the physically observable ends and personal attitudes
and self-belief begins. Students become aware of the
importance and independence of the individual, and
of the personal elements that both student and teacher
bring to any situation.
The concept of the ‘self’ is explored, through a
theoretical introduction and grounding in self-efficacy
and its influences, but also with a strong focus on the
self-reflection. Students are strongly encouraged to
draw upon cumulative personal experiences in order to
understand the application of the psychological concepts;
if they are able to address the relevant issues in their own
learning then they will be better equipped to recognise
similar approaches holding back their own students,
and hence to become more successful in a teaching
situation. It is stressed that as a teacher, it is important
to empathise with a student in order to work with him
or her. Explanations and instructions from a teacher are
important, but ultimately it is in the ‘doing’ that students
master their situation and create the self-efficacy belief
that will carry them forward.
The processes involved in learning (for instance,
as expressed by Zimmerman 2000) form a cycle of
forethought, action, and reflection. These are dissected
and students begin to understand how the traditional
42
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
43
Disciplines
workshops at Jessie Young
Husband Primary School,
Chichester.
role of a teacher as a verbal instruction book has limited
impact, and that the success of the student is dependant
on a gently teacher-guided, but student-implemented,
course of successive actions. It would be short-sighted for
a teacher simply to order a succession of tasks for students
to complete, as this does not recognise the context of
the individual’s self-efficacy, or of any other self-belief.
Students are asked to reflect on their own learning and
to observe their own involvement with processes of
preparation and reflection that usually happen outside the
controlled context. Through this self-analysis, students
begin to identify and understand the resulting byproducts of good practice.
Verbal inferences can influence self-efficacy, and
students are aware that they may be teaching someone
for whom stronger self-efficacy influences, born of
experience, do not yet exist. In this case the strength of
the teacher’s word could be the source inspiring fear and/
or confidence, until a mastery experience either confirms
or negates it. This places a certain gravitas on the
element of communication. In order to ensure students
have a solid foundation for analysing situations in order
to provide advice and guidance, they study learning
strategies, and monitor how they self-regulate their
learning. The usefulness of modelling using a mastery or
coping situation to explain concepts and show musical
passages to students is introduced. These methods
are explored through role-play where both the student
and teacher act out, with stipulated challenges such as
a student’s aversion to having mistakes highlighted,
illustrating the need to be adaptive and receptive in
approach. Several situations are presented and discussed
in order to understand the processes of student and
teacher interaction and the influence of various actions
and words on the learning process.
Both the theoretical grounding and the opportunity for
exploration and reflection on the concepts that occurs in
the first half of the module is supported by my empirical
research into the self-efficacy beliefs and learning
habits of both child beginners and advanced musicians
studying at university or conservatory. The processes of
planning and reflection are further developed through
watching videos of student-taught lessons, experiencing
peer teaching in the lecture sessions, and by observing
professionally taught lessons in class. This is intended to
act as another form of modelling (see Schunk, 1998), and
of vicarious learning for the students – intended to refine
their self-efficacy beliefs for their own teaching. Students
then undertake the teaching component of the module,
where they apply the learned concepts in teaching their
own private lessons.
44
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
curriculum and skills, and produce a reflective analysis
covering the interaction with the student, the success
of teaching methods, and comparing the pre-written
lesson plan to the actual lesson content. Students teach
peers from other departments, or staff members from
other faculties who have volunteered for free music
lessons. The IVT students are encouraged to help their
new students articulate goals and to guide the learning
toward incremental, and tangible, achievement, and so
the process of understanding and improving self-efficacy
is passed on.
Knowing the importance of opportunities presented
by a teacher, the role of feedback helps to reinforce the
need for carefully considered planning. The practical
experience developed here builds confidence and
demonstrates the application of self-efficacy. In the end
the module is as much about the process of teaching as it
is about the university student’s own learning.
Further reading
Bandura A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of
behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, pp. 191–215.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social
cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Hallam, S. (2001). The development of metacognition in musicians:
Implications for education. British journal of Music Education, 18,
pp. 27–39.
MacNamara, A., Holmes, P., & Collins, D. (2006). The pathway to
excellence: The role of psychological characteristics in negotiating
the challenges of musical development. British Journal of Music
Education, 23, pp. 285–302.
Ritchie, L. (2011). Musical self-efficacy for learning and performing.
Doctoral dissertation, Royal College of Music.
Ritchie, L., & Williamon, A. (2011) Measuring distinct types of
musical self-efficacy. Psychology of Music, 39, pp. 328–344.
Ritchie, L., & Williamon, A. (2011). Primary school children’s self
efficacy for musical learning. Journal of research in music education, 59,
pp. 146–161.
Schunk, D. (1998). Teaching elementary students to self-regulate
practice of mathematical skills with modelling. In D. Schunk and B.
Zimmerman (Eds.) Self-regulated learning: From teaching to reflective
practice. (pp. 137–159). The Guilford Press: New York, New York.
Zimmerman, B. (2002) Becoming a self-regulated learner: An
overview. Theory into Practice, 41, pp. 64–70.
The student becomes the teacher
By the time the students are put into a private teaching
situation, they have already analysed the mechanics
of their instrument, studied the published repertoire,
developed their own repertoire, and studied musical
development and assessment. Successful teaching relies
on a secure knowledge of the instrument and the music
being taught, and on clear feedback and encouragement
in order to create a genuine dialogue between the student
and the teacher. Students plan and teach their own
45
Disciplines
Integrating research and teaching in Crop Physiology
Edward Dickin, Harper Adams University College
students are introduced to plant breeding theory earlier
in the module and this is reinforced by a ‘hand-on’
session in the glasshouse where students make their
own plant crosses, and then see some of the other
techniques such as single-seed-descent and screening
for disease resistance.
Previously, I worked as a post-doctoral researcher at
Bangor University, where my remit was research rather
than teaching, so in all honesty, one driver behind
integrating research into my teaching was perhaps to
keep a foothold in more familiar territory. However,
there are a number of very good educational reasons
for integrating research and teaching in this module.
Some of the scientific concepts of crop physiology are
too abstract if not placed in the context of a familiar
crop situation, but become clear when applied to
explain observed effects in the crop. My expertise on
learning theory is not great enough to make a definitive
judgement on Kolb’s learning cycle (Kolb, 1984) versus
learning styles (Honey & Mumford, 1982) versus Race’s
‘ripples on a pond’ (Race, 2005) models of learning,
but what is agreed by all three of these explanations
on ‘effective learning’ is that ‘learning by doing’ plays
a vital part in effective teaching and learning (Race,
Expanding a research-led module
In my first year of teaching I played safe when designing
the field experiment, using a commonly-grown winter
wheat variety in a 2x2 factorial design with two seed
rates and two sowing dates. The experiment fulfilled its
purpose, yielding data analysable using the techniques
learnt in the Research Methods module, but some
students quickly picked up that this was a contrived
experiment, rather than ‘real’ research. There was much
greater interest in the research plots of barley alongside
the teaching plots. The barley experiment was a range
of ‘exotic’ genotypes with naked grain and high betaglucan soluble fibre content from Japan and Syria, grown
as a continuation of my research into food barley started
at Bangor (Dickin et al, 2011; Dickin et al, 2012).
Due to the constraints of scheduling assignment
submission dates around a realistic student workload,
any potential experiment needed to give usable data
early in the crop growing season (crop sown in October,
harvested July, student measurements complete by late
February). My previous research had shown that the
naked barley varieties showed differences in seed vigour,
seedling establishment, growth habit and speed of
development. All these can be assessed between autumn
and early spring.
Lectures are scheduled so that each topic is covered
according to its place in the crop development cycle approximately the order that the students will encounter
each process in the field plots. For example, germination,
seedling vigour and the technique of seed priming
are covered in weeks 2 and 3, as in parallel these are
examined in experiments in growth cabinets and
emergence counts in the field. The differences in growth
habit and speed of development observed through the
season are excellent illustrations of how the plants
respond to thermal time, photoperiod and vernalisation,
all of which are abstract concepts if not put in context.
The assignment takes the form of a short paper, which
some students have little experience of producing, and
therefore should be good preparation for the research
project that forms a requirement of the final year. This
year I have introduced a tutorial session on scientific
writing and critical reading of scientific papers, as
experience last year showed that many students were
more comfortable with using textbooks, many of which
are unfortunately over thirty years old. I post papers of
interest onto the ‘Learning Hub’ Moodle page for the
module, also as part of the effort to engage students with
current research.
In addition, I also use my programme of crossing
high beta-glucan Himalayan barley with high-yielding
disease-resistant UK barley as a case study for teaching
on the final year Crop Improvement module. The
46
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
47
Disciplines
I was appointed as a lecturer at Harper Adams in
2010 and I am module leader on Crop Growth and
Management, a second year module covering crop
physiology, whereby students are expected to apply
knowledge of plant physiology. The module learning
outcomes for Crop Growth and Management are to:
‘Relate variation in crop development, crop growth,
yield and quality to soil, weather and management.’
‘Predict effects of soil, weather and management on
potential growth, yield and quality.’
2007). Biggs and Tang (2011) outline the concept of
constructive alignment, whereby teaching and learning
activities and assessment are aligned with the intended
learning outcomes. Hence an assignment based on a
field experiment where students observe and measure
the effects of different agronomic treatments, and
explain their effects in terms of crop physiology, forms
a key part of the module.
Practice-based agricultural research
On a national level, there is growing concern at the
disconnect between fundamental plant science research
and practice on farm, manifested in the widening
gulf between genetic potential and yield achieved on
farm of major crops such as wheat and oilseed rape.
A cause could be the reduced levels of applied research
in agriculture over the last thirty years. Unfortunately
there is potential for the situation to deteriorate
still further: concentration of research funding on
fundamental plant science at research-intensive
universities and research institutes, the latter of which
do not teach undergraduates, combined with a push
towards teaching undergraduates at local FE colleges
rather than the more-costly universities, could mean
that many students will go into the industry without
being taught by active researchers.
Finally, I feel that teaching has had a positive
effect on my research. In formulating the best ways
of explaining crop physiology I have been forced to
reappraise some of the fundamental concepts that I
had taken for granted. For example, I am developing
a research interest in perennial cereals; a concept that
had been smouldering for some time was reignited
Making and thinking:
Art, contextual practice and sustainability
Mary Loveday-Edwards, Plymouth College of Art
when I was looking for material to explain the annual life
cycle of all cereal crops currently grown. As a result I have
established a contact with the Land Institute in Kansas,
initiated a programme to breed perennial barley at Harper
Adams and started to collaborate with colleagues with
research interests in ecology and soil science.
Further reading
Biggs, J., and Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for Quality Learning at
University, 4th Ed. Maidenhead: Open Universiy Press.
Dickin, ET., Steele, KA., Frost, G., Edwards-Jones, G., Wright, D.
(2011). Effect of genotype, environment and agronomic management
on beta-glucan concentration of naked barley grain intended for
human health food use. Journal of Cereal Science, 54, pp. 44–52.
Dickin, ET., Steele, KA., Edwards-Jones, G., and Wright, D. (2011).
Agronomic diversity of naked barley (Hordeum vulgare L.): a
potential resource for breeding new food barley for Europe.
Euphytica, vol. 184, no. 1, pp. 85–99.
Honey, P., and Mumford, A. (1982). The Manual of Learning Styles.
Peter Honey Publications.
Kolb, DA. (1984) Experimental Learning: Experience as the Source of
Learning and Development. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Race, P. (2005) Making Learning Happen. London: Sage Publications.
Race, P. (2007) The Lecturer’s Toolkit, 3rd Ed. London: Routledge.
There has been much discussion recently about the value
and weighting given to vocational options in secondary
school subjects. This weighting, stating academic
standards of equivalence, was an interesting attempt to
redress the perceived lack of respect or value given to more
hands-on, less academically-focused subjects or courses.
But recently, following the Wolf Report, the Government
has re-examined its approach, leading to widespread media
coverage. There was much howling, for example, about a
BTEC in nail technology having been afforded equivalence
to two GCSEs. But alongside this disdain for non-academic
subjects there was also a murmur of unease about the onesidedness of the criticism. Perhaps some non-academic
subjects needed to be re-examined for equivalences – but
why were they so ‘valued’ on an academic scale in the
first place? Why is the default measure of value a purely
academic one, when surely the measure of vocational
studies must be essentially different?
‘Making’ and the academy
This has highlighted an interesting dichotomy – some
might even say a contradictory attitude – in the teaching
of art as a subject in tertiary institutions. It is taught as an
academic degree – but in what is essentially a vocational
manner. After all, students are expected to be able to ‘do’
photography, illustration, jewellery or film when they
graduate. At its worst, this dichotomy can lead to a severing
of the link between the academic and studio practices.
It can lead to an us-and-them approach; to either the
academic or the practical side being undervalued, and to
an inability to appreciate the respective merits of each.
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
49
In practice this can lead to either an entirely academic
approach to making, or a move towards design rather than
actual making in subjects like contemporary craft; or to
an approach where the academic side of things is actively
undervalued – even undermined – by students and some
staff, and to the academic team having a really hard time in
getting students (and some staff ) to see the relevance of its
place in the curriculum. This despite the fact that academic
work and studio work can exist in harmony and indeed
complement each other.
To return to the GCSE analogy, sometimes studio work
is seen as the vocational option – as the thing students do
when they can’t write or think. Sometimes students are
seen as being academic by default or artistic inability – an
attitude of, oh well, they can do schoolwork, but they are
‘not a maker’. These attitudes are disempowering and
divisive. How much better it is to find the common ground,
which is what the Contextual Practices team at Plymouth
College of Art have been attempting to do for the past
few years.
Contextual Practices
In the third year of their degree course, students are
required to complete a written research paper of 6000
words (shorter than the normal dissertation ). Students
can either produce Option 1 or Option 2. Option 1 is a
traditional dissertation-style paper, a research enquiry
located within an appropriate and credible discursive
context, drawing on other texts and research to support
and develop their argument. The learning objectives
are to: undertake an individual research project which
Disciplines
investigates appropriate historical and theoretical contexts,
and demonstrates critical and conceptual thinking;
evidence the ability to research, analyse and synthesise a
range of appropriate contextual information, including
contemporary and historical processes and practices that
might inform the student’s own work; and to develop
communication skills in the articulation of ideas in both
oral and written forms, applying appropriate academic
conventions in relevant contexts. The module is designed
to run alongside students’ studio work in terms of both
timing and as a means of reflection; in other words, the
written research should reflect, extend, and contextualise
their studio concerns, and vice versa.
For example, a ceramics and glass student with a basic
and fairly unquestioning ‘nature is good and we should
use its forms as inspiration’ attitude found herself on a
confronting and challenging journey, first of all examining
the social construction of ideas about nature, and then
examining art/science collaborations to find what the real
value of art in these partnerships might be. Her view of
both nature and her discipline was radically challenged,
refined, and strengthened by this process, with her final
studio project shaped by the academic research journey
she had taken.
But in addition to this option, the Contextual Practices
team, who initiate, instruct, and oversee the paper, have
introduced and encouraged Option 2 – an artefact with
corroborating contextualising writing. This option
requires students to develop a practice-led research project
leading towards the production of a body of work, an
artefact, which must be supported by a critical summary
of the research process and conclusions. This written
element consists of between 3,000–4,000 words and, as in
Option 1, is fully referenced and obeys all other academic
conventions.
Given some of the attitudes outlined above, concerning
the view of making as an alternative to thinking, it is
sometimes important to make clear that despite the
reduced word count, this is not an easier or ‘softer’ option,
and it is important that any student considering this route
fully understands the relationship between the written
and practical aspects of the project and submission. The
emphasis in this option is on using practice, (the process of
making) as a viable research method, alongside (not instead
of) more standard desk/library based research strategies.
Students need to consider how they might deploy practice
as a way to test out an idea, explore a possibility or
demonstrate a critical position. In all cases, the written
paper should articulate the use of practice as part of the
research, as well as offering a supported critical framework
and analytical approach that draws on appropriate reading
(just as in Option 1). The golden rule for students deciding
which option to choose is: what would you find out from the
primary research of producing your artefact that you could not
find out by any other means?
So, for example, a student of jewellery, interested in
the role of small scale digital inputs into the hand-made
process, built his own rapid prototyping (RepRap) machine
from shareware that he sourced during his research
process. Though he produced a great artefact, and his
practice-based research was extensive and innovative, his
critical support research was not of such a high standard,
and he did not achieve what he might have. A ceramics
student interested in relational aesthetics held a number
of tea parties for which the ceramics that were shared
and altered during the tea party were submitted as the
trace of the art work – the social interaction. This was
further contextualised by her research on Bourriaud and
Freire, resulting in a strong project marrying innovative
practice and theory. A photography student mused on the
place of craftsmanship in his discipline where everything
seems controlled by the digital process. He built a large
traditional camera (based on the 20x24 Hunter Penrose),
working within the glass studios to make the plate, mixing
his own chemicals, and producing photographs in the
darkrooms. Theoretically his corroboration comes from the
resurgence of interest in the benefits to the individual of
making things by hand, as outlined by Matthew Crawford
and others. The project will continue well past his final
year and the theoretical and critical framework has been
of immense importance to him in positioning his practice
within his own sense of self and his life as an artist.
The making process and sustainability
A stringent definition of, and reflection on, practice-led
or practice-based research (as of equal status to deskbased research) is relatively new and still rather debated
within art and design circles. But the desire to find a way
to truly integrate academic and studio practice has led to
this introduction of Option 2 at Plymouth College of Art,
and continues the drive to refine the option. Past issues,
challenges and opportunities centre on the need to define
what a dissertation (or extended written research project)
needs to provide for the student, the institution, and the
wider society. For example, although art students choose a
course based on personal interest and aptitude, which often
does not encompass research or scholarly writing, they
do understand that their written research project is part
of their study that ‘proves’ they have earned an academic
degree, and have a right to represent themselves as degree
level students to society at large.
The importance of the link between practice and
research is made even more explicit by the specific research
concerns of a number of staff at PCA. For example, Ian
Hankey’s research into small scale kilns could be classified
as developmental or applied research except that it is
clearly grounded in a more scholarly concern about, and
interrogation of, the role of tacit understanding of material.
His questioning of the largely unchallenged position of
dominant academic and economic paradigms is based
on sound historical, cultural and theoretical research.
The relationship with material is paramount to a maker,
whether one is making photographs, illustrations, video
games, or pots. Moreover, this relationship with material is
seen as being of primary importance not only with regard
to the object finally produced, but to the process of making
itself. So Hankey’s research into tacit skills emphasises
not just the objects that are created in the kiln, beautiful
though these are. It arises from an understanding that, for
glass to have a sustainable existence into the future, the
dominant paradigm of Fordist efficiency, separating out
the component parts of a making process in order to allow
for faster production of a commodity, must be roundly
challenged by a deeper understanding of the importance of
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
51
Disciplines
Working together:
Cross-Sector practice development in Art and Design
as research-led teaching
Samantha Broadhead, Leeds College of Art
tacit knowledge in a making process. Both making,
and thinking about the context of the making, must
work in synergy.
Likewise, the view that making needs to be underpinned by a deep understanding of the culture and
conditions under which it is produced is supported by
my own research. I was a research associate in craft
and sustainability at PCA between 2007 and 2009, and
the findings led to the similar conviction that not just
unsustainable behaviours, but the thinking that leads to
unsustainable behaviours, must be addressed. For example,
in most institutions the focus of the sustainability officer
is on stuff – how much stuff we are using and how can we
use less stuff, or how can we use better stuff that is not so
polluting or has a smaller carbon footprint, or how can we
use just as much or more stuff and look like we are using
less. This could be seen as a rather uncritical acceptance of
the same dominant paradigms critiqued in Hankey’s work.
But if we take a more critical and analytical approach to
the ideas of sustainability we might begin to, for example,
apply the ideas of Marx and the fetishisation of the
commodity to sustainability, perhaps finding that when
we focus on the end commodity, even if that commodity
is something as nebulous as energy use or carbon credits,
we still think we have no intimate relationship with these
units or with their producers, and we still think we can
buy ourselves out of trouble. This can then be explored as
a way to really question the institution’s sustainability
credentials and (crucially) actions, and can become (if
nurtured) a systemic approach. It could lead to a more
robust and resilient approach to the idea of sustainability.
At a recent Making Futures conference there was an
expression of desire for (primarily craft) students to
be allowed to make things and be graded as if this was
an academic process; so although for some arts-based
institutions or departments the idea of practice-led, or
practice-based, or practice-as research will seem normal,
it is clear that for many it is still not. At PCA we are
committed to its inclusion and development as a form
of research and we continue to interrogate it in terms
of inclusion, of equivalence, of rigour and of cultural
relevance. There is cross-institution interest in alternatives
to the formal or traditional dissertation option and
members of the Contextual Practices team are committed
to sharing in this groundswell of interest.
The aim of this research project was to evaluate how well
Access tutors, those who help prepare mature students
to undertake a degree, could work together with Higher
Education (HE) staff to improve pedagogy with a specialist
Art and Design College. This case study illustrated the
benefits and challenges of working with other sectors in
Art and Design education. Access tutors observed HE
sessions where students presented work and received
feedback in the studio (studio critiques). Through
discussion and critical reflection, strategies for improving
Access delivery were identified based on a Joint Practice
Development (JPD) approach.
Introduction
In 2011 The Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS),
a sector-owned body which aims to develop excellent and
sustainable Further Education (FE) provision, awarded
Leeds College of Art a grant that enabled a range of crosssector activities to occur. These activities included Access
staff observing a variety of studio critiques that occurred
in Art and Design HE programmes. In February 2011
the QAA identified the use of structured group critiques
for studio work as a feature of good practice within the
College’s HE provision (QAA, Institutional Reports, 2011).
Access students were also able to talk to HE students about
their work. This was very valuable to the ‘Access to HE’
course, both for staff and students, because a previous
research project had recommended a dialogue with HE
tutors to ensure the course kept up to date with changes in
HE (Broadhead and Garland, 2011). This would help the
course best prepare Access students for HE study as well as
Context
The College has two main campuses. It runs a range of
specialist and general Art and Design FE Courses at one
site that is mostly self-contained and separate from the
other site where a range of specialist degree and foundation
degrees are taught. The majority of tutors work mainly on
one site, perhaps meeting all together twice yearly during
staff development weeks or briefing days.
The College delivers the Access to HE Diploma (Art and
Design) as a full-time day course and in a part-time mode
on an evening. It is aimed at mature students who have not
been in conventional education for at least a year. What
constitutes a mature student has become increasingly
vague. Students can be as young as nineteen, but may find
the pace of an Access course more suitable to their needs
than a Pre-BA Foundation course or A levels, which are
seen as the more traditional route to degrees in art and
design (Hudson, 2009). However, there is usually a wide
range of students from ages ranging from twenty to over
seventy. Often these students have had a diverse set of
experiences and come from a variety of backgrounds. The
aim of the Access to HE Diploma is to prepare students for
a degree or foundation degree in art and design. Not only is
this done by accreditation but also by the preparation of a
portfolio of work which is used at interviews as part of the
application process.
The students are taught the knowledge and skills
necessary to succeed on their higher level course; these
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
53
Disciplines
ensure they applied to the course best suited to their needs
and future aspirations.
skills include visual studies, drawing, responding to set and
self-directed briefs, technical skills in specialist workshops
like photography, ceramics or printmaking, contextual
studies, academic skills of researching, presenting and
essay writing.
The full-time and part-time Access provision is
successful in getting people onto the Higher Education
course of their choice. Progression is not just restricted to
local Higher Education Intuitions and universities, but
includes many types of art and design courses all over
the country (Further education: Student Achievements and
Career Routes, 2009–2010). About ten to eighteen students
a year progress internally. Students who are successful
in achieving a place generally take up that place in the
following September.
The underpinning theoretical context
The main theoretical framework for this study was based
on Joint Practice Development, a concept that critiques
the cascade model of staff development. It argues that
good practice cannot be easily passed on from one group
of practitioners to another for two main reasons. Firstly,
cascading good practice can be seen to be divisive because
it promotes the idea that one group of people has good
practice and another does not, thus creating an unequal
and perhaps resentful working relationship. Secondly,
the context in which practice is performed is not deeply
considered; what is good practice in one area may not be
suitable in another. It could be argued that all practices
need to be modified to fit a new context. Rather than
passing or cascading practices to colleagues, a more
54
The Case Studies
The Access course leaders made an appeal for HE tutors
who wanted to take part in cross-sector activities during
a staff development presentation addressed to the whole
college. From this call for partners, three HE courses
expressed an interest: BA Interdisciplinary Art and
Design, BA Visual Communications and BA Printed
Textiles and Surface Pattern. A timetable of shadowing
was then drawn up. The two Access tutors who were
selected to shadow and observe HE activities were parttime and usually would have had less opportunity to take
advantage of existing networks with colleagues in HE than
would course leaders and full time tutors. This project
enabled them to work together with HE staff to develop
their own practice and feedback observations to the Access
team. The Access tutors were responsible for arranging
a time when they could shadow a HE studio critique
session. They then made notes about what they had seen
and discussed their findings with both their HE and
FE colleagues.
Two examples were a cross- year studio critique and
another which focused on one piece of work. They were
delivered by the BA (Hons) Art & Design Interdisciplinary
Course and are designed to promote a ‘sense of ownership’.
This was managed by three HE tutors and observed by
two Access tutors who made reflective notes that were then
shared with the rest of the Access team.
The first studio critique was part of an ‘Open Studio’
week where all students from the three year groups
arranged current work within their individual work spaces.
Students were split into four groups. Each group had a mix
of 1st, 2nd and 3rd years. All students prepared to present
work, but tutors (unknown to the students) had selected
in advance one person per year per group to actually
present to the rest of the group. The Access tutor observed
staff discussions before studio critiques. There was a
strong focus on what questions to ask. There were similar
questions for each student, but differentiation through the
expectation of different qualities of answers depending on
year group.
The style of studio critique varied throughout the
academic year. This particular approach was designed
to build on an ‘Open Studio’ event and encourage
communication between year groups. There was no
formal feedback given, but students were encouraged
to reflect on experience over the Christmas break.
The staff looked for evaluative comments on student’s
own practice that were not initiated by staff. The
presentations were not linked to a particular brief but
were concerned with process, rules of practice, tools of
practice and links to other practitioners. It was noted
that there were very strong links to critical studies
During the studio critiques students were reminded
about a weekly ‘discussion forum’ that would start
in the new term. Students were encouraged to put
questions/themes onto the notice board, which would
be the basis of a vote on the most popular topic to start
off the next term’s work. The Access tutor described
how the group moved around the studio to different
workspaces. All students were engaged with standing
and looking at work; maybe this was less intimidating
for the student leading the studio critique? Most
students were very quiet during the process and
interestingly, most questions and comments came
from past Access students.
During the studio critiques students presented and
talked about just a few key pieces. Several times the
HE tutors encouraged students to stop and reflect on
work so far. Staff were keen for students to develop one
idea more deeply rather than explore multiple ideas
more superficially.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
55
Disciplines
sustainable process would be to develop relationships
and trust between groups of professionals where ideas
can be explored together over time (Fielding et al,
2005). Other aspects that need consideration are teacher
and institutional identity in practice transfer, learner
engagement and an understanding of the time needed to
successfully engage with JPD (Fielding et al, 2005).
The values and identities of different groups of
practitioners are also important concepts to consider
when reflecting on cross-sector partnerships. An insight
into other professionals’ positions within an institution
brings to light differences in what is seen as important
within the education process. This exposure to other
points of view through observation and discussion will
influence teacher identities through the stories and
communications professionals tell each other. Expressions
of cultural values, norms, and structures are also passed
on through narratives in discussion (Beijaard et al, 2004)
The exchange of ideas with other art and design educators
will lead to a deeper understanding of the issues students
face when they progress from FE to HE.
Access students at Leeds
College of Art managing their
own critique process.
The second structured studio critique was introduced by
an HE tutor who presented a group of first year students
with a mystery object. The group was asked to identify
what it was and who made it. Two students were able
to deduce that the object was a coat hanger designer by
Antony Gormley: this initiated a discussion about the
relationship between art and design. The Access tutor
noted that this was a way for the HE tutor to contribute to
the session and engage the interest of the group. Students
were then asked to select one piece of work and to think
carefully how to present it. Within groups of about 6
students the work was discussed by everyone, excepting
the creator of the work. Only at the end of the process
did the student say what intentions drove the work. The
Access tutor thought that the process led to focused
discussions that were not bogged down in superficial
detail. The HE course leader and the Access tutor had the
opportunity to share observations after the session.
Future pedagogies
After this process the Access team discussed how some
of the ideas learned from the shadowing exercise could
be applied to the curriculum. These ideas needed to be
considered within the context of Access provision, as
not everything successfully done on an HE course would
be appropriate for Access students. These included the
following suggestions:
critique more about a student’s own working methods
than the physical outcomes could encourage students to
reflect on their own practice? This would help them in
preparing UCAS applications, interviews, and writing
their own briefs. Students would become more aware of
who they are as artists/designers/craftspeople.
• Consideration of the timing of studio critiques by
timetabling them before breaks, when students could
be given reflective questions raised from the studio
discussions to work on in sketchbooks during the
holidays.
• Student-owned studio critique space: -previously,
students had brought work to a separate space. But
by letting students present in their own spaces the
process could be more balanced and equal. This could
maximise students’ time to consider and reflect on at
one other’s work.
• Developing a discussion forum: - it would be difficult to
allocate an hour a week for an in-depth discussion, but it
would be a positive use of Moodle (the college’s virtual
learning environment) and maybe a way of uniting 1st
and 2nd year Access students. If this engaged students it
could become almost self-running.
• I ntroduce more cross-year studio critiques to boost the
confidence of second year students who would be talking
about their work in interviews.
• Non brief-specific studio critique – Access tutors
had previously linked studio critiques and formative
assessment to briefs. However by making a studio
The danger of focusing on one student at a time was
identified in the staff guide of Critiquing the Crit, (Orr et
al, 2008). Access tutors could, therefore, structure studio
critiques so that the student’s peers comment on the work
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
57
Disciplines
before the student talks about it. This would mean that
everyone has to be engaged with the process, rather than
just the student who is presenting the work.
Conclusions
The Access process worked best when there was already
a good relationship between the two courses, through
previous contact and good communication about
student transition from FE to HE. The amount of time
required for developing such a relationship cannot be
underestimated. Both parties should be committed to the
project and value the outcomes. Although the outcomes
of the JPD process are owned by the course teams
because of the time and personal investment made by
the participants, it would not normally have occurred
without external funding; thus it may be more difficult to
sustain this level of cross-sector collaboration.
The Access tutors appreciated the shift of focus
in the studio critique from the object/image/work to
the creative process. The use of different years in the
studio critique was also interesting as a way of boosting
confidence when talking in front of people different from
the students’ usual peers. The ideas gleaned from the
shadowing experiences were useful because Access staff
could imagine how they could be used within their own
particular practice. This is an important point to make
The Access studio at Leeds
College of Art where full and
part-time students discuss their
visual research.
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
as it is what differentiates the JPD process from the cascade
model of improvement and pedagogical development.
Within this research project the course partnership that
emerged as most successful was with the Art and Design
Interdisciplinary course. This was because the FE and HE
staff had some common ground. For example the Art and
Design degree had more open briefs and was wide ranging,
as opposed to courses like Photography or Interior design,
for example, which are more focused and specialist.
The shift in focus away from the products the students
produced to the processes demonstrated a difference of
values between FE and HE staff. Access staff valued the
production of a portfolio of artefacts that would allow
entry to a degree course. However, the HE staff are more
interested in helping students become confident reflective
practitioners who can work professionally after their
course. This difference is not a bad thing, but is useful to
consider more broadly across the sector to support Access
students progressing onto their HE course.
59
Further reading
Beaton, F. (2006) HE in FE: whose Professional Teaching Standards?
In Issue 7.1 Educational Developments: The Magazine of the Staff
and Educational Development Association Ltd (SEDA) pp. 12–13.
Beijaard, D. (2004) Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional
identity in Teaching and Teacher Education 20, pp. 107–128.
Broadhead, S. and Garland, S. (2011) Are Access students from
Leeds College of Art who progress internally well prepared to complete
and achieve at HE level? Found at www.excellencegateway.org.uk
page.aspx?o=302201[Accessed 2nd January 2012].
Fielding, M. (2005) Factors Influencing the Transfer of Good practice
Nottingham, DfES Publications Further education: Student
Achievements and Career Routes, 2009–2010, Leeds College of Art,
www.leeds-art.ac.uk [Accessed 2nd January 2012].
Hudson, C. (2009) Art from the Heart: the perceptions of students from
widening participation backgrounds of progression to and through HE Art
and Design National Arts Learning Network.
Orr, S., Blythman, M., and Blair, M. (2008) Critiquing the Crit: Staff
Guide found at www.adm.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/adm-hea-projects
learning-and-teaching-projects/critiquing-the-crit [Accessed 3rd
January 2012].
QAA, (2011) Institutional Reports, www.qaa.ac.uk. [Accessed 2nd
January 2012].
Disciplines
A joined up framework for identifying dissertation topics in a technical
environment (Computer Networking)
John Davies and Vic Grout, Glyndwr University
Most taught undergraduate and graduate courses include
either a final year project or a dissertation. The purpose
of this type of module is to enable the student to carry out
a detailed investigation on a specific topic that is related
to the subject area being studied. Usually this subject
area has been addressed in the taught part of the course
but not covered in any depth. This enables students to
develop their research skills and possibly provides them
with a topic on which to base their future careers.
When carrying out academic activities in technical
subjects it is often possible, desirable really, to link the
subject into areas of research in which the supervisor is
a specialist. Although not always practical, clearly this
approach has a number of advantages from both the
student’s and supervisor’s point of view. The student
has the opportunity to work in an area that is up-todate and relevant, has access to a technical expert in
the field and, presumably, appropriate ( but possibly
limited) equipment with which to undertake the work.
From the supervisor’s point of view, it is often possible
to encourage the student to undertake practical work
to test out questions or hypotheses, posed as part of the
dissertation topic, that can be then be used to support
arguments in subsequent published conference or
journal papers. This can be extremely attractive for
the supervisor, who frequently has little or no time
available to spend in a laboratory environment setting up
experiments; it also affords the student the opportunity
to become a sort of research partner, invested in the
process of experimentation and feedback.
From a different perspective, one of the major problems
with dissertation modules is being able to find
unique topics that a number of students can work on
independently. Clearly the topic should be something that
the student has some knowledge of; additionally it should
be an area that the student is interested in working in and
feels confident will help them in their career. This chapter
discusses the issues associated with creating a framework –
specifically in computer sciences – that can be applied to a
number of topic areas.
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
The Problem
Supervisors often find themselves in a position where they
have to handle large numbers of full-time and part-time
undergraduate and postgraduate students undertaking
dissertations, which creates the situation that, at any one
time, students are in different phases of their work and so
have different requirements of the supervisor. Having some
kind of structure in place helps the supervisor provide
appropriate guidance to the student, enhancing their
ability to switch between detailed subject areas. This can
be invaluable when, for example, a supervisor has to see a
stream of students following on at half an hour intervals.
Having a framework for dissertations in technical areas
also allows supervisors to give a helpful presentation to
students in a coherent way in what can be, to a student,
a very daunting module. This approach should aid the
student in selecting a topic area. Clearly the topic area that
a student selects should be appropriate to the level of the
award that they are studying for and it is the responsibility
of the supervisor to ensure that there is enough scope in the
selection to enable a high-flying student to undertake more
advanced work and the less able student to at least gain
from the experience.
There are some parameters that need to be addressed
when creating the framework, some of which are common
to most technical dissertations. A simple example is
making sure that there is a realistic and considered
requirement for equipment, particularly when expensive
equipment needs to be shared. Ideally the framework
should allow students to show their initiative in the way
that the framework is applied, which can often be catered
for during the analysis of results stage.
An Approach
In most technical areas, courses have to be, in a very real
sense, completely responsive to changes in technology
and practice which, depending on the finer subject, can
come thick-and-fast. Clearly, these are the areas in which
students should be encouraged to undertake dissertations
since they are beneficial for their future careers and,
in some cases, for the advancement of the discipline.
Computing is one such area and in particular Computer
Networking. The following example illustrates this point.
One of the major practical problems associated with
carrying out research on the infrastructure of Computer
Networks today is that it is heavily based around Internet
technology. A key, but easy to overlook, point with
regard to work of this nature is that it is essential to keep
laboratory research and testing away from the real Internet
and company/university infrastructure since this could
cause serious problems with other users. (Unsurprisingly,
61
advertising unreal/experimental networks to the rest
of the Internet really upsets Internet Service Providers
[ISPs]!) The use of artificial network simulators (usually
in software) is a common way of solving this problem but
this approach suffers from several drawbacks; often the
latest technology is not supported, the results obtained
from the models can be misleading. A more important
aspect is that the students rarely get real, hands-on
experience of working with network components (routers,
switches, cables, connectors, etc.). To this end it is highly
advantageous to propose a topic area where the student
can work with network equipment that is isolated from the
main network.
A simple but useful approach is to suggest that the
student produces a research question to consider or
research hypothesis to test which, on the surface, might
be simple and straightforward but to which the answer is
not so obvious. Such seemingly innocent topics abound in
Computer Networking and rich research avenues open up
when such ideas are either challenged or novel experiments
proposed to support them. It often becomes the originality
Ipv6 delay
> ipv4 by
IPv6-tunnel delay > Tunnel-ipv6 delay >
ipv4 by
ipv4 by
1.24%
4.80%
Disciplines
3.5%
The answer to this hypothesis is not as straightforward
as it might seem. On the surface, IPv6 is a simplified
version of the IPv4 protocol and therefore should be
quicker to handle. However, the addressing field is 96
bytes longer, which will take longer to handle. There
are conflicting factors. Students are likely to expect the
hypothesis to be true since they would assume that the
newer version is better in all respects; a large amount of
the published research might support this. However, this
will not always be the case and an innovative approach
to experimentation might highlight some important
anomalies. To examine, support or challenge this
hypothesis the student would be expected to design
and build a network that could be configured to
operate with either protocol, pass the same data and
measure the delays encountered. Devising such test
processes, subject to the constraints of the hardware
and software available, requires a degree of ingenuity
and inventiveness. Experience shows that project
students are often very good at finding these original
experiments even if they need further guidance on
how to perform the tests accurately or interpret the
results correctly.
A typically interesting way of approaching this
might be to assume that the network is a ‘black box’
(i.e. for the time being the contents are of no concern)
and to produce a methodology for measuring delays
through it. Adopting this approach means that the
technique can be applied to most networks irrespective
of the technology of the network being investigated.
Additionally, if standard components of hardware
and software can be used for the measurement
(e.g. ‘open source’ software such as Wireshark) on a
standard computer then availability of equipment is
less of a problem. A range of dissertations can then be
undertaken and the student can concentrate on the
design of the particular network to be investigated and
the analysis of the particular results they obtain. An
answer to the proposed hypothesis might typically (and
realistically) be contained in a 25,000 word dissertation
report that concentrates on a particular instance,
manifestation or ‘flavour’ of the question. For example,
63
Disciplines
of the analysis and experimentation that brings the work
to the correct level rather than the novelty of the area
of investigation itself. On this level, it barely matters
if the initial research question/hypothesis is perfectly
formed, nor does any predicted or likely outcome figure
particularly highly in assessing an idea for suitability.
Marks for dissertations are usually based around
undertaking the process in a scientific and logical fashion
and therefore the actual true or false result is irrelevant
as far as marking goes. All that really matters is that the
testing/evaluation framework is clear and the method of
interpreting results understood.
An Example
A typical example of such a hypothesis based around
Computer Networks might be framed thus:
Hypothesis: By converting a network from IPv4 to IPv6,
there would be an improvement in network performance.
62
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
the figure below shows that, under certain circumstances,
IPv4 has less delay, which is a very simple, and surprising,
answer to a quite complex procedure.
The end result of this approach, implemented over time
and involving a number of students, is that supervisors
have a ready source of results from a common structure,
which means that it should be possible to aggregate results
obtained from different tests by different students with a
certain level of consistency. These can then be combined
to form the basis for academic and journal papers and also
new or more in-depth topics that can be introduced into
the next year’s curriculum. The process is cyclical: smaller
experiments such as these combine to produce useful
research results to publish; in turn, analysis of these results
points to the next round of theory and practice.
A Framework
In a technical environment, adopting a standard
framework, which is suitable for the particular subject area
(the above is just one example for Computer Networking),
can make the implementation of projects/dissertations
more efficient and effective both from the students’ and the
supervisor’s point of view. This approach is applicable to
most technical areas, although the actual implementation
details will vary.
Students benefit from being able to concentrate on the
subject matter of the dissertation without having to be
distracted by side issues. Simple lectures, guided by past
experience, can be given to groups of students to prepare
them to use the framework, which normally has to be
continued on a one-to-one basis during the dissertation
64
proposal approval phase, allowing greater numbers
of students to engage in advanced research. Once the
framework has been explained, then students can work at
their own rate and at the level of detail that they require.
Students can be easily assisted since the supervisors will
have gained some feel for the expected results due to past
experience; simple errors can be picked up, encouraging
more focused and innovative work.
This approach also helps the supervisor to stay up to
date with student progress, since similar techniques may be
used for all the dissertations within the framework, which
is extremely useful when a large range of students are being
supervised, all at different phases.
Finally, the usefulness of the results obtained from
different dissertations/projects should not be underestimated, especially in technical areas, where it is often
difficult for supervisors who are engaged in research to
undertake the detailed tests themselves.
In conclusion this seems to be a ‘win-win’ allowing
both students and staff to engage more fruitfully with
technological research.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
65
Disciplines
Research that matters:
Expanding definitions of ‘research-led teaching’ in history
Di Drummond, Leeds Trinity University College
‘Research-led teaching’ is vital for both the undergraduate
and post-graduate experience and for those of us who
teach and research in universities. Indeed, many would
argue that it defines ‘a good university education’, making
research matter for students and academics alike. However,
this term ‘research-led teaching’ does conjure up a vision of
halcyon days, when the academic discussed their research
with a small group of students and in response, students
developed their own understanding of the topic. Such days
are long gone, if they ever existed. As an undergraduate
at the University of Birmingham during the early 1980s I
experienced some excellent research-led teaching as Peter
Cain and Tony Hopkins explained their ‘gentlemanly
capitalism’ theory of British Imperialism in workshopbased seminars. It was ongoing research, ‘hot off the press’
and very exciting – I still remember it thirty years later –
but even then the number of undergraduates on the course
were rather more than a few!
How can teaching be led by our research when we
all have so many demands on our time, increasingly
limited opportunity for research, student groups that
are expanding in size and often a widening portfolio of
modules to teach? How can we make opportunities for
our own research and create a conducive learning and
research environment for our students? In my own subject
area of History in the Department of Humanities at Leeds
Trinity University College we have struggled with such
problems for a long time. While we are probably a long
way off ‘getting it right’, by widening and even redefining
the concept of ‘research-led teaching’, and strategising
so that our research and teaching directly coincide we
have managed to increase opportunities for research-led
engagement with our students at both the undergraduate
and postgraduate level. The following chapter will
explore definitions of ‘research-led teaching’ that we have
adopted in History at Leeds Trinity, presenting a widerrange of models of this process than are usually explicitly
forwarded. It will also consider some of the strategies
that we have developed, often very haltingly, to bring
research and teaching together. This has involved some
lateral thinking!
66
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
History at Leeds Trinity
History at Leeds Trinity has a very small and close knit
teaching team (Prof Maureen Meikle, Prof Karen Sayer,
Dr Rosemary Mitchell and myself, Dr Di Drummond,
3.5 in total, all ‘research active’), in a small university
college. Our honours degree programmes have an intake
of approximately 30–40 students each year. While having
such a small number of academic staff, we hit all the targets
on the History Benchmarking statement. We also support
a thriving MA in Victorian Studies and a small number of
PhD students.
We enjoy success in learning, teaching and research.
History at Leeds Trinity not only scored a 100% satisfaction
rate in the 2011 National Student Satisfaction Survey, but
we also had 25% of our submissions graded as 4* or 3* in
the 2008 RAE, a good result in the university sector we are
in. A research-intensive environment has been created by
the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies (LCVS), established
nearly twenty years ago, which enjoys an international
reputation. The focus on research into the nineteenth
century amongst three of the History staff and a number
of those in the English subject area together with our
teaching on our MA in Victorian Studies further enhance
this. The College also provides a research leave scheme
where we may apply for periodic remittance on some of our
teaching hours. Recently, members of staff in Humanities
and History have been awarded professorships and
readerships in recognition of their research activities.
Research-led teaching: Widening the definition, finding
other models
So what is ‘research-led teaching’ (henceforth ‘RLT’) and
how have we in History at Leeds Trinity widened the more
usual definition of this term, developing further models
of how RLT might operate together with strategies for
creating more opportunities for students to experience
RLT?
Definitions of ‘research-led teaching’ at university
undergraduate and postgraduate level are seen by
commentators to share some essential factors across
all disciplines in universities. The University of Exeter
provides a very useful definition on its website for
prospective students. Research-led teaching is seen to occur
when:
• Students are taught by experts in specific disciplines
about their ongoing research. (This might be called
‘Academic Research-Led Teaching’ or ARLT.)
• Students become, through being taught by researchactive academic staff, active learners and researchers in
their own right.
67
ssentially these first two points need to be supported
E
by a wider context, specifically a research-intensive
culture in the university, department and subject area.
Clearly we do use this more established model of
ARLT in History at Leeds Trinity, seeking to extend
its implementation whenever we can. However, with
further examination of this established model, it is
possible to define further forms of RLT that are implicit
in the definition provided by the University of Exeter.
In summary the further models of RLT I will use
here are:
• Research-led teaching that demonstrates research
methodologies, theoretical approaches or
conceptualisations that emerge from our specific
historical research (‘Research methodology Researchled Teaching’ – RmRLT), rather than teaching that is
led directly by academics’ historical research.
• Student-led Research-based Learning (SLRL) is also
an essential element for us. This is clearly implicit
in the University of Exeter definition of research-led
teaching provided above. Being taught by researchactive staff is good, but students engaging in their
own research, either in groups, or as individuals,
including preparation for formative or summative
assessed work, is also very valuable.
• Teaching that is led by our own research into learning
and teaching History in the University environment.
I will dub this ‘Pedagogic Research-led Teaching’
or PRLT.
Disciplines
Research-led teaching: A result
of demonstrating research
methodologies to students in a
taught module together (RmRLT)
with pedagogic-research led
teaching (encouraging student
Finally, and possibly more contentiously, we have also
turned the concept of research-led teaching on its
head, adopting the strategy of developing new aspects
of academic historical research from our teaching, or
purposely generating teaching modules in tandem with
new areas of academic research. (And at this point I
have run out of acronyms!) As will be seen later in this
chapter, this final, initially teaching-led strategy in time
becomes a research-led form of teaching. It has proved to
be a very interesting and stimulating strategy, engaging
students and staff in some vital projects. As a result of
this, our students are literally included in our research
from its earliest stages. When this works well, a researchorientated, even a research-rich environment is created
for students and staff alike.
This chapter will now explore how we use and expand
the established ARLT model in History at Leeds Trinity,
and then consider these other models of RLT.
Reassessing RLT: Further Models and Strategies for
RLT Extending the usual Academic Research-led
Teaching (ARLT) Model
We do use this more usual model of academic researchled teaching within our programmes, including the
undergraduate BA History, MA in Victorian Studies
and PhDs. For instance, each of the final year History
Special Subject options focus on at least one aspect of
our ongoing academic research, engaging students with
documents and other forms of evidence that we have
investigated. Karen states that: ‘My teaching has been
stimulated by research in a very direct way….my Special
68
Subject on Victorian Agriculture rests entirely on my
expertise in rural history.’
The students taking the MA in Victorian Studies also
directly benefit from our historical research with members
of the History staff providing option modules in such
areas as ‘Women and Art’ (Rosemary), ‘The Victorian
Railway’ (Di), ‘Victorian Identities and Victorian
Imperialism’ (Karen and Di).
We also try to extend this model of research-led
teaching whenever we can, validating new modules or
revalidating existing ones, both at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels. Our aim is to give our students
increased engagement in ARLT, a move that is good for
us and for students. This year our Themes in Modern
World History has been changed to focus on ‘British
Imperialism and After’, a move that draws on my research
into ‘Railways and the British Empire’ and Karen’s in
Post-Colonial Theory. Once again, students on the MA
in Victorian Studies have particularly benefitted from
this process, with two new modules being introduced
on ‘Victorian Imperialism as Material Culture’ and
‘Victorian understanding of the environment and
conceptualisations of Nature’. These are respectively the
results of my own and Karen’s historical research.
Research methodology Research-led Teaching (RmRLT)
Another way that the model of research-led teaching is
often extended is in developing modules that focus on
approaches to research or theories and concepts used,
rather than teaching specific academic research topics
themselves. Karen sums this up very nicely arguing
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
69
Disciplines
realisation of their own ‘thinking
styles’ – PRLT). A student’s
mindmap of her plans for her final
year dissertation (SRLT).
that: ‘[In teaching from our research]...the research
methodology is as important as the “content”.’
Academic staff teaching in this way are key to generic
historical research modules. These include the dissertation
and research report (for final year undergraduate
students and in the MA), along with modules where
students produce smaller individual research reports (for
undergraduates). Our dissertation and research report
modules for undergraduates and MA students include
a taught element where student groups meet with a
member of staff to discuss such essential elements to
historical research as compiling a bibliography, writing
historiography, identifying and using evidence and
research approaches. The MA core module, ‘Approaches
and Methods for Victorian Studies’, not only includes such
elements in considering historical methodology, but also
engages students in approaches to literary theory, objects
and material culture and Victorian paintings. One element
of assessment for this module has students producing a
comprehensive plan for a future dissertation or research
report while the other requires them to make an in-depth
study of a piece of literature, object or painting using the
research methodologies explored on the module.
Other of our History modules, while not drawing
directly from our historical research, use the skills that
we routinely employ in our investigations. One of my
undergraduate modules, ‘Figuring the Past’, examines
migration to and settlement in the USA between 1800
and 1950 (which I have studied but have never researched).
However this is used as the basis for students learning
and using statistical methods (which I do employ in my
historical research). Rosemary also has an undergraduate
student research module exploring ‘Medieval Religion’ that
uses methodological approaches to art and architecture
that she has developed in her own ongoing research and
publications on the Victorian period.
Concepts and theories used in staff members’ specific
historical research can also be applied to other learning
and teaching contexts and topic areas. One example of this
is our new MA option module on ‘British Imperialism as
Material Culture’. While this clearly draws on my own and
Karen’s academic research on colonialism, the approaches to
material culture are the result of Karen’s long-term research
and publications on women and rurality.
70
Student-led Research-based Learning (SLRL)
While the University of Exeter’s definition of ‘researchled teaching’ clearly implies a student-centred approach
to learning via research, it is good to explore this idea
more fully, acknowledging the importance of student
engagement in their own research. From the simplest and
most straightforward weekly set-tasks to the complexity of a
dissertation-level research project, this gives opportunity for
students to learn by their own research experience.
Practically all of our teaching at undergraduate and
postgraduate level is carried out as workshops, with students
being encouraged to engage with a range of primary sources
or prepare secondary and theoretical reading. (I use the word
‘encourage’ here because, as we all know, sadly students do
not always do this). A range of means are employed for this,
including student-led short papers, group report backs and
discussion and by using role play. Such approaches aim to
develop investigative approaches, theorizing and ‘deep
learning’ amongst our students.
Students are also expected to become self-activated
learners and researchers in their own right, engaging in
planning and carrying out research in various modules
throughout their degree course. Initially these research
projects consist of very prescribed group work. Students
nearing the completion of their degree carry out research in
specific topic areas that they plan and produce themselves.
In the ‘Making History’ module at level 5 students carry
out self-selected mini-research planning projects on one
of my research and teaching specialities, the campaign for
women’s votes in Britain. The culmination of this is, as
is quite usual in History honours programmes, a longer,
supervised research project on a topic chosen by each
individual student. Students who have found difficulties in
the research methodology-based modules earlier on in their
programmes take a shorter ‘Research Report’ rather than
the dissertation.
One of the key elements that we have in a number of
our student-led research modules are unassessed and
assessed group and individual presentations. These
are introduced as group presentations at level 4, giving
students opportunities to develop their confidence
and presentational skills, progressing to an assessed
twenty minute presentation which forms a vital part
of the dissertation module assessment. In engaging
students, both as groups and individuals, in research and
articulating their research findings, these presentations,
reports and dissertations can be seen as very high level
examples of both SLRL and Research-led teaching.
Pedagogic Research-led Teaching (PRLT)
Research-led teaching need not just stem from our own,
or our students’ academic research. Investigations into
teaching methods at university level can also provide an
extremely valuable form of learning for students. Perhaps
the best way to sum this up is to quote my colleague
Karen again: ‘Teaching itself, through reflective, critical
pedagogy, should be treated as a valuable research base’
and I would like to add, a very useful resource for researchled teaching.
Over many years, Karen, Rosemary and myself have
engaged in learning and teaching research, including three
grant-supported projects for the former History Subject
Centre of the Higher Education Association. Our pedagogic
research, including research into how university-level
students learn and conceptualise key factors, has informed
our teaching and student learning. My own research into
reflective logs and diaries for students engaged in research
projects includes student discussion on how they, as
individuals, think and research.
Similarly, Karen’s research project focusing on her own
scholarship and later research of conceptualisations of
race and national identity has provided a means for her
to engage her students in this pedagogic research project
and in realising something of their own intellectual and
ideological development. Karen says: ‘I conducted a (so far
unpublished) piece of critical pedagogical work on raced
identity within the student body on the Level 6 module
Presenting the Past….students were asked to reflect on
[their own] conceptualisations of “whiteness” and relate
this to media re-presentations of the past.’
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
71
Disciplines
Teaching leading to Academic Research and Research-led
teaching!
Finally, teaching, when supported by scholarship, enquiry
and pedagogic reflection on our part, can also lead to
new areas of academic research for us, in time turning
this teaching into research-led teaching. We have also
developed new areas of research and teaching in tandem.
This has proved a very worthwhile strategy, bringing
together teaching and research and making the range of
teaching we conduct a positive virtue for our own academic
research and for student learning.
In History at Leeds Trinity we have all done
this in some way. Rosemary’s teaching of medieval
topics has allowed her to develop her Special Subject,
‘Representations of the Medieval, 1750–1850’, while
Karen’s ‘History of Childhood’ module, delivered to
students on the College’s Childhood and Youth and the
History BA Honours programmes, led to her researching
rural children and co-organising a LCVS conference on
Victorian Childhoods. For me, teaching ‘The History of
Media’ to Journalism students, together with my own
personal interest in the crisis in Kosovo in 1999 and Bloody
Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972, led me to investigate
methods for using newspaper and television reportage in
teaching Contemporary History modules. Supported by
a further History Subject Centre grant, such pedagogic
research-led teaching has important implications.
Teaching has also led to our developing completely
new areas of academic research. Again Karen’s experience
provides an excellent example of this: ‘My decision to
organise a three-day international conference for the LCVS
next summer (2012) on the Victorian conceptualisation of
disability was in large part stimulated by my teaching the
history of disability and Deaf history’. Currently one of
Karen’s dissertation students is investigating the History
of disability, and intends to go into some form of work in
this area after graduating. Karen is also breaking new,
vital ground in the relatively new disciplines of ‘Deaf and
Disability Studies’.
72
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Conclusion
In summary, our experience in History at Leeds Trinity
demonstrates that while academic research-focused
teaching is extremely useful for our students and ourselves
as academics, with some widening of definitions and
lateral thinking academics’ methodological, conceptual
and pedagogic research can just as equally enrich students’
research-led teaching experiences. Research-centred
learning, where research is conducted by the students
themselves, can also produce research and learning that
matter in the university, and enrich students’ ability to
understand, develop and apply encountered knowledge
in all contexts in their lives outside of the academy.
Finally, and very productively for us, with scholarship and
reflection, teaching topics that are outside our academic
research areas can inspire us to take up new areas of
research bridging disciplines, sharing these experience
with our students and again, producing research that really
does matter.
Leeds Trinity University College has a student body of
about 3,000 and received Taught Degree awarding powers
in 2009.
Within the History subject area of the College’s
Humanities Department professorships were awarded
to Dr Maureen Meikle, Professor of Early Modern
History, Head of Humanities and Director of Academic
Enhancement (Research) for the College and Dr Karen
Sayer, Professor of Social and Cultural History in March
2011. Readerships were given to myself (Reader in
Modern History) and Dr Rosemary Mitchell, Reader in
Victorian Studies and Director of the Leeds Centre for
Victorian Studies.
73
Further reading
The Times Higher Education Supplement, 5th January 2010 and
‘Female Professors to the Fore at Leeds Trinity’, Leeds Trinity
University College website at www.leedstrinity.ac.uk/news_events
news/Pages/Female_professors_to_the_fore_at_Leeds_Trinity
University_College.aspx.
‘Studying Here: Research-led teaching’, The University of Exeter
Website at www.exeter.ac.uk/undergraduate/studying/research/
accessed on 4th January, 2012.
Karen Sayer, Women of the Fields: Representations of Rural Women in
the Nineteenth Century, Manchester University Press, 1995 and
Country Cottages: A Cultural History, Manchester University Press,
2000.
Higher Education Academy History Subject Centre Teaching
Development Grant 2005–6, on the Development of Student
Reflective Learning Practices regarding transferable skills in
History undergraduate research project modules (independent study
at level 5 and dissertation at level 6).
LCVS Victorian Childhoods conference, May 2010, published as
Susan Anderson, Rosemary Mitchell and Karen Sayer (eds.),
Victorian Childhoods, Leeds Working Papers in Victorian Studies,
Volume 11, Leeds, 2010.
History Subject Centre Higher Education Academy/JISC Grant to
develop web-based tutorials for using Newsfilm Online database,
April 2007 – March 2008.
Disciplines
Integrating service provision, research, and student learning in sport
and health science: A replicable model?
Saul Bloxham, Ben Jane and Paul Salisbury
University College Plymouth St Mark & St John
This chapter examines a model of service delivery in
operation at University College Plymouth St Mark and
St John (Marjon). The service is a public-facing exercise
referral (ER) programme delivered by students and
staff at the HEI for NHS patients suffering with nonspecific chronic low back pain. The report focuses on
two outcomes of the model: the effectiveness of the ER
programme to enhance the health of patients referred,
and the perspectives of students who volunteered to
help deliver the programme. The report also reviews
the model’s potential benefits to Marjon, particularly in
light of the Browne report and the increasing pressures
on HEIs to generate additional income streams.
Background
The model was developed in response to a local
hospital’s need for exercise referral for patients suffering
from chronic low back pain. The relationship between
Marjon and the NHS was initially forged through the
recruitment of a professional advisory group (PAG)
to steer a new degree programme, namely BSc (Hons)
Health Exercise and Physical Activity (HEPA). It was
apparent in discussions from an early stage that Marjon
had the resources necessary to meet the needs of the
NHS. These included: low cost delivery, appropriately
trained staff, exercise facilities, effective management
processes, monitoring of patients and the potential
for periodic programme evaluations (action research).
Low cost delivery could be achieved through the
recruitment of students to help deliver the programme
(under supervision). In turn this experience would
74
provide a rich vein of situational learning for the new
undergraduate students. This student contribution
was central to the model’s design, yet the potential to
integrate service delivery, research and enrich student
learning became intuitively attractive for all involved.
The service
Each year nearly 5 million working days are lost
through back pain and the condition is said to cost a
total of £1.6 billion in health care costs (Maniadakis,
2000). It has been suggested that exercise has a positive
impact on those suffering from Chronic Low-Back Pain
(LBP) and does not increase the risk of further back
injury or work-absence (Rainville, 2004). However, the
majority of research into exercise therapy as a treatment
for LBP has centred on delivering mono-disciplinary
interventions that have focused on improving specific
outcomes such as strength of the lumbar stabilising
muscles (Rackwitz et al, 2006), functional range of
motion of the lumbar spine (Nachemson, 1992, cited in
McGill, 2007) or aerobic fitness (Chatzitheodorou et al,
2007). Considering that approximately 85% of cases are
non-specific (European Guidelines for Prevention in
Low Back Pain, 2004) it is unlikely that one particular
approach can facilitate significant improvements in
LBP. At present, there is a paucity of research that
explores the effectiveness of holistic, multidisciplinary
exercise programmes for the treatment of LBP.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
The student learners
Matveev and Milter (2010) highlight a growing trend
in higher education that encourages lecturing staff to
shift the emphasis of their delivery from ‘instructing’
students to ‘facilitating’ or ‘empowering’ learning. Dewey’s
approach to learning advocated a learning style that
equipped scholars with future, as well as present skills
(Wojcikiewicz and Mural 2010). His seminal works (1889;
1916) also maintained that students should learn in a
context not separate from the society in which they would
reside, and that the environment in which education takes
place is equally as important as the skill of the educators.
Moreover, some of the students that helped deliver the
programme were integral in shaping the delivery mode of
the ER programme to its current form. The undergraduate
dissertation project proved to be a suitable vehicle for this
research, findings of which are summarised in this chapter.
exercises appropriate for their ability. The programme
was specifically designed to adopt a holistic approach
embedding a strong social-psychological theme.
Exercise Programme
Fifty nine patients were referred to the ER programme by
the NHS hospital. They all undertook a six week group
physical activity programme that included elements
of movement awareness, core stability training, sports
massage, activities of daily living, cardiovascular and
resistance training (including aqua). Each week gave the
participants the chance to participate in a safe, supervised
environment but also included educational content, goal
setting and behavioural modification support. Patients
were encouraged to increase their weekly activity levels
and all were issued with a pedometer, recording sheet and
diary. Patients were also given information sheets and
Exercise Programme outcomes
The salient findings of the students’ dissertation
research on ER programme included significant
improvements in patients’ functionality,
pain management, muscular endurance and
cardiorespiratory fitness. It is noteworthy that the
majority of patients were classified as having nonspecific LBP, but had a raft of different causes that
often remained undiagnosed. The findings of one
particular student dissertation on the ‘The effects of a
multi-disciplinary physical activity programme on low
back pain’ revealed that the ER programme’s success
was perhaps its holistic and multi-aspect nature. It
demonstrated the ER programmes potential to provide
broad and relevant physical activity experiences that
enabled each patient to derive benefits suited to their
condition and ability. In particular, features that
patients anecdotally enjoyed included the programme’s
educational themes, the group interaction, our student
contribution, posture improvement, aqua fitness,
walking programme, sport massage and diverse
physical activities for the patients. Moreover each
session had embedded activities of daily living that bore
relevance to patients’ daily challenges (McGill, 2007).
A student research project entitled ‘The
effectiveness of a 6 week lower back pain programme
and the adherence to physical activity following the
75
Disciplines
programme’ highlighted the need for a comprehensive exit
programme to be developed. Further student research to
develop and evaluate an exit programme was instigated the
following year. Research to verify patient perceptions of the
ER programme remains on-going.
Student perspectives
A focus group was selected to sample the perspectives of
and to provoke discussion with students who volunteered
to help deliver the programme. The focus group was
administered in light of guidance by Long (2007). Six
Diploma and Honours students volunteered for the focus
group. Anonymity of respondents was assured and the
use of names was not permitted during the focus group.
The focus group was recorded, selectively transcribed
and a process of open coding was used in order to analyse
and disseminate the data. It is important to note that
student dissertation projects were not prescribed by
staff. Supervisors were sought outside the delivery team
wherever possible.
When questioned on their reasons for taking part in
the programme, all respondents intimated that their
primary motivation was to boost their CVs. The absence
of answers which related to supporting academic studies is
noteworthy, although not especially surprising or negative
given Dewey’s theoretical position, the economic context
and the pressure on students to secure employment.
Since Dewey’s ‘rules’ for experiences insist on students
volunteering for such programmes, this very functional
view of the respondents is indeed welcome and reassuring
in terms of recruitment of future student volunteers.
76
Students are making conscious connections between
volunteering and their future career plans. They appear
to view the ER programme as a conduit by which to
improve their prospects. This supports the assertion
that such experience provides a meaningful context, not
separate from the society in which they intend to work
(Wojcikiewicz and Mural, 2010).
Conclusion
Since the ER programme’s inception in 2008, over 30
students have helped in delivery and gained practical
experience. This has resulted in 8 dissertation projects
and 7 modular projects, all of which have achieved 1st
or 2:1 classifications. The majority of these student-led
projects have made some contribution to shaping the
delivery and format of the ER programme. This rolling
evaluative component of the ER model has been a
distinct advantage, both ensuring the commissioning
organization (NHS) maximizes its investment and the
patients get the best quality of experience.
The ER programme has provided a small but
significant additional income stream for the HEI.
Findings from the annually-collated action research have
been disseminated, including through a local ‘Business
Health Network’, a regional ‘South West Exercise
Research Group’ and through the HEI’s Annual Learning
and Teaching Conference. To date, six staff have either
helped in delivery or furthered their research profile
through publications and conference presentations
related to the ER programme. Moreover, promotional
material including a short video capturing patient
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
testimonials, has been used by the HEI to demonstrate
the vocational relevance of its degree programmes. Most
recently, Macmillan Cancer Support, based in a local
South West Hospital, has commissioned the HEI to pilot
a similar exercise programme as a feature of their cancer
survivorship programme. They have requested a model
of delivery identical to that of the LBP ER programme
documented in this paper. Finally, staff have used the
experience to publish action research, inform formal
teaching content, engage in CPD and enhance their
personal networks with local business and institutions.
77
Further reading
Browne, J. (2010) Independent Review of Higher Education Funding
& Student Finance. http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/corporate
docs/s/10-1208-securing-sustainable-higher-education-browne
report.pdf accessed 3/4/11.
Chatzitheodorou, D., Kabitsis, C., Malliou, P. and Mougios, V. (2007)
A Pilot Study of the Effects of High- Intensity Aerobic Exercise
Versus Passive Interventions on Pain, Disability, Psychological
Strain, and Serum Cortisol Concentrations in People With Chronic
Low Back Pain. Physical therapy Vol. 87, No. 3, pp. 304–312.
Dewey, J. (1899). The school and society. Edited by J. A. Boydston.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: The Free Press
Dewey.
HSE (2005) Back Health at Work. UK: Health & Safety Executive.
Humphrey, A. (2010) The Browne Review – Implications for
Researchers. www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/111741-306111/The
Browne-review---implications-for-researchers. accessed 23/3/11.
Kneale, P. (1997) ‘The rise of the “strategic student”:how can we
cope?’ in Armstrong, M. Thompson, G and Brown, S. (eds) Facing
up to Radical Changes in Universities and Colleges. pp. 119–139 London:
Kogan Page.
Long, J. (2007) Researching Leisure, Sport and Tourism: The
Essential Guide. London: Sage.
Maniadakis A. and Gray, A. (2000) The economic burden of back
pain in the UK. Pain Vol. 84, pp. 95–103.
Matveev, A. and Milter, G. (2010) An implementation of active
learning: assessing the effectiveness of the team infomercial
assignment. Innovations in Education and Teaching International.
Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 201–213.
Ord, J. (2009) Experiential learning in youth work in the UK: a
return to Dewey in International Journal of Lifelong Education. Vol. 28,
No. 4, pp. 493–511.
McGill, S.M. (2007) Low Back Disorders: Evidence based prevention
and rehabilitation (2nd ed) Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics .
Rainville, J., Hartigan, C. and Martinez, E., (2004) Exercise as a
treatment for chronic low back pain The Spine Journal Vol. 4,
pp. 106–115.
Wojcikiewicz, S. and Mural, Z. (2010) A Deweyian Framework for
Youth Development in Experiential Education: Perspectives
From Sail Training and Sailing Instruction in Journal of Experiential
Education. Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 105–119.
Disciplines
Case studies
3
78
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Between production and display:
On teaching curating to Fine Art students
James A. Brown, Plymouth College of Art
This chapter will argue for the need to consider ‘situation’
as central to a contemporary fine art education. The recent
increase in interest in the ‘sitedness’ of artwork, and the
recent introduction of a number of new undergraduate and
postgraduate programmes in related subjects – such as
museum studies, curatorial studies, and similar – provide
the context for the validation of the new BA(Hons) Fine
art degree at Plymouth College of Art, which includes
at its heart a Critical and Curatorial Practices pathway,
unique to the UK.
The question for this project, then, was: how might
we best deliver an education in critical and curatorial
practices to fine art students, who are naturally oriented
toward, and used to, a studio – and practice-based
approach to their practice? This is considered in the
context of a renewed interest in Nicolas Bourriaud’s
‘relational aesthetics’ as communicated through projects
such as the Arnolfini/UWE ‘Situations’ project in Bristol,
led by Claire Doherty, and the continued questioning of
the role of the studio as the sole originating framework
for the interpretation of contemporary art. It should
be noted at this stage, however, that the significance of
this research stretches beyond the delivery of a specific
subject into the art school studio and classroom and
creative disciplines more broadly, as some of its outcomes
(concerning the learning styles of art students and how
these may guide teaching) can also be applied in such
contexts. These questions will be addressed through a
case study detailing the initial cohort’s response to the
1st Year Critical and Curatorial Practices module, after
first considering the centrality of site and situation to
contemporary art practices, and then addressing the
particular nature of arts students’ learning styles.
79
Case studies
Theoretical contexts
Miwon Kwon states that ‘our understanding of site has
shifted from a fixed, physical location to somewhere or
something constituted through social, economic, cultural
and political processes.’ In ‘Contemporary Art: From Studio
to Situation’, Claire Doherty links the terms ‘situation’ and
‘context’, using the latter to explain the former, describing
‘context’ as ‘an impetus, hindrance, inspiration and
research subject for the process of making art’. However,
I would go beyond simply suggesting context as a possible
starting point for making art, and see it as the central
content of all contemporary art. ‘By situated’, Doherty says,
‘we refer to those artistic practices for which “situation”
or “context” is often the starting point.’ As a writer on
art, I would argue that situation and context should be
the necessary starting point of our interpretation (and
therefore understanding) of all art works, contemporary
or historical, because all works are both physically, but
also ideologically, situated. This is why it is crucial that
fine art students learn to be aware of context from a much
broader perspective than the traditional confines of the art
department studio.
Applications: Curatorial strategies and the marketplace
Doherty refers to the development of ‘a diverse range
of curatorial strategies to support the visiting artist,
particularly in relation to the creation of new work’
toward the ‘re-imagining of place as a situation, a set
of circumstances, geographical location, historical
narrative, group of people or social agenda.’ This locates
the creator of the work some distance from the notion of
the artist as individualist creator of the singular artwork,
again casting doubt upon the studio as thesingular
originating space from whence artworks emerge.
Michel Maffesoli asserts that ‘[the image] no longer has
anything to do with the individualism of modernity…
The image is a bonding agent; it creates community, it
welds together’. The work must now be considered as
just one aspect of a Barthesian discourse that takes place
between artist, institution, work,audience, space and
place. Each ‘participant’ in thisdiscourse takes no greater
role than any other, the work existing as indicative of
(and part of ) a ‘network-based society’.
And thus the artist is again characterized as one
who works with and within a broad range of contexts
and situations.
The fine art student, then, must become more
thanthe informed studio practitioner who courses have,
up until recently, produced in numbers. Indeed, fine
art graduates (as all arts graduates) are finding more
thanever that they are leaving the academy only to
enter an ultra-competitive market, where competition
for representation by galleries or at art fairs means that
only the most well-equipped for the market will find
an outlet for their work. It is telling that Saatchi Online
has become the last bastion of the artist searching for
a setting within which their work may be viewed by
some semblance of an audience. Indeed it appears that
the more successful work on the site (both aesthetically
and financially) is that which works best in (digital)
reproduction.
The role of the art department, then, must be to send
forth artists who not only understand the demands
of the marketplace as a site (and the growing range of
media and forms in which their work will be sited), but
are capable of siting their own work in a context that
allows their work to thrive.
80
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
New pathways: The Critical and Curatorial Practices
Module
A number of institutions in the UK (and elsewhere)
have recognised the need for programmes which address
this developing interest in the institutions and media
which frame cultural production. However, in the
majority of cases, these programmes seem to see the
responsibility of the siting and framing of work as closer
to the remit of the art historian (or museum curator in
her traditional form) than of the artist, when the more
relevant contemporary work, as Doherty suggests,
seems to be that which critically engages in its context,
as a discourse between artist, work, site and audience
The Critical and Curatorial Practices pathway at
Plymouth College of Art explores its subject from both
an historical and contemporary perspective, providing
students with a broad understanding of modes of
production, display and consumption of art:
‘A particular emphasis is placed upon the analytical
skills of criticism to underpin the students’ responses
totheir own work and the work of others, and the
practical and theoretical aspects of curation; both as
increasingly diverse modes of operation’ (Plymouth College
of Art, from rationale, Fine Art: Critical & Curatorial
Practices pathway).
These ambitious aims do, of course, present potential
difficulties, particularly when presenting first year
students with ideas and perspectives which will challenge
the typical fine art student. However, through a varied
and, hopefully, exciting programme, the first cohort of
students have developed their critical faculties, as well as
their understanding of curatorship as a central part of art
practice to a level beyond what we could have hoped for
when planning the module.
In order to deliver a subject that bestrides practice and
theory, it is first necessary to understand something of
the learning styles of the students one will be addressing.
In a study from 2005 Alice and David Kolb place students
at Cleveland Institute of Art in polar opposition to, for
example, MBA students. The arts students learn very much
through the ‘feeling, acting, reflecting’ and ‘reflecting,
feeling, thinking’ models (where the MBA students
learn best through the ‘thinking, acting, reflecting’ or
‘thinking, reflecting’ models). This shows us, then, that
the art student learns best through experimentation
and experience (feeling, then acting, then reflecting),
suggesting that a more experiential learning experience
in the Kolb model would be better suited. Indeed, Kolb
and Kolb characterise the differences between an art and
management education thus:
81
‘The experimental learning process of demonstration
– practice – production – critique that is used in most
artclasses[ …] is repeated recursively in art education
while management education is primarily discursive, with
each topic covered in a linear sequence with little recursive
repetition. Management education tends to emphasise
theory while art education emphasizes integration of theory
and practice.’
So, in order to deliver our subject effectively this integration of theory and practice is crucial, and is evident from
the very first classroom activity that we do with our
students.
‘The Curator’s Egg’
This task was presented to the students before we had
spoken to them about the module documents, its content,
or even explained the title of the module to them. They
had not yet read any texts relating to this module (unless
of their own volition). For two of the three staff in the
classroom, this was the first time the students had met us.
Their programme leader brought into the room a cardboard
box containing a small wrapped package for each student
(a quail’s egg wrapped in white tissue paper). We gave them
few details as to the origin of the objects and, surprisingly,
not one of the students were able or willing to make a
confident guess as to even what animal had laid them (one
thought they might have been from a crocodile!). The task
was simple. They were to display the egg, and consider the
implications for meaning and interpretation that their
presentation may have. We call the task ‘the curator’s egg’.
Case studies
A group of 1st Year Critical and
Curatorial Practices students
present their final project to
their peers, lecturer and staff
from Plymouth City Museum
and Art Gallery.
Each student approached the task from very different
perspectives, often using previous experience as a
starting point. For example, the draftsman painstakingly
peeled the outer shell from the egg, using its fragments
to draw a composition with the delicate inner shell (and
its contents) as its central focus; the painter used the
fluid innards of the egg to trace a stroke across a surface
(in this case a mirror) and the film-maker made a semiabstract film set to an experimental soundtrack (all
produced within the session).
According to the Kolb model of the experiential
learning process, one of the six propositions upon which
it is built is that:
Adam Milford (Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery)
‘…learning occurs through equilibration of the dialectic
process of assimilating new experiences into existing
concepts and accommodating existing concepts into
new experience.’
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
concepts are communicated through concrete examples
drawn from a range of curatorial/art practices.
Having already curated their egg during the
previous session, the theoretical reading and learning is
contextualised by the practical, experiential tasks, rather
than the other way around.
Kolb and Kolb observe that art school students
demonstrated a significant shift from the reflective to
active modes of learning, ‘perhaps indicating student
growth and development toward a more active role in their
learning as a result of the empowering, active structure of
the [art school] learning environment’. Our students also
demonstrated this tendency, becoming more and more
active learners as the module developed.
What each of these responses to the task shows us is
that students will bring to bear prior knowledge and
experience to new experiences and problems, assimilating
both into a holistic and productive learning experience.
After completing this task during the first session, in
subsequent sessions theoretical and contextual texts are
then introduced. Although, each session is subsequently
split in two parts, what we might call a ‘showing’
part, and an ‘experiencing’ part. However, even in the
‘showing’ part of the session, which involves the delivery
of theoretical positions and conceptual ideas relating
to various areas of curatorial practices, these abstract
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
This active learning is no more evident than in their
response to the final project they were given. This semilive project was delivered in collaboration with Plymouth
City Museum and Art Gallery. The students were asked
to respond to the work that was currently hanging in
the main stairwell of the museum. The brief is, again,
very open, simply asking for a curated response to the
site and thework, including: a curatorial statement, a
project proposal, a written critical response, and any other
documentation the group members feel necessary.
The students were asked to respond as much to the
spaceas to the work, and one of the groups decided early
on that the space of the stairwell could not be seen as
independent from the rest of the museum (and of the
institution’s ideologies), and so came to the conclusion that
83
Case studies
The Critical and Curatorial
Practices modules at Plymouth
College of Art encourage students
to consider context and site as
Learning through experience
What is important here, is that this learning has been
achieved through experiencing the role of the curator, artist
and/or writer in each task with which the students are
presented. For this final task, and particularly for the group
I have briefly discussed here, this meant interviewing the
artist of the current work, speaking to the keeper of art at
the museum as well as researching into funding bodies and
their application processes. By this stage in the module,
these students had taken complete ownership of the
project, and tutor input was minimal.
As one member of the group put it:
‘I particularly found the experiential aspects of my
learning useful – learning through doing has such an
impact. Also, the andragogical principles which underpin
the module – collaboration, action and reflection, critical
thinking and self-direction – motivated our group to
84
really get to grips with real projects: theoretically
initially[…] then in practice through the curation
ofthe British Art Show 7 newspaper.’
Moreover, the project that was submitted by this group
of students demonstrated that the notion of sitedness
(and how site must be considered an ideological space as
much as a physical one) had been fully integrated into
their consideration about the placing of their own work
as fine artists (and, as is evident in work for subsequent
modules, continues to be so). This cohort of first year
fine art students is showing an increasing concern
with the ‘politics’ of sitedness, and beginning to view
themselves as more than studio artists, indeed, they
are more aware (as has been evident through tutorials)
than previous cohorts of the meanings inherent in the
studio itself.
As a direct result of this module, a group of students
from the cohort became involved in the publication
of a three-issue newspaper, Nebula, published to
coincide with the British Art Show 7: In the Days of the
Comet during the Plymouth leg of its four-city tour.
This required the students (as art writers) to produce
publications which addressed the broad public at which
the show was aimed, taking into consideration the
relationships between curator, artist, institution and
place (the show took place in a university gallery, a
municipal museum, an arts centre and a non-artspace),
writer and audience. This allowed the students to
take the skills learned through the academic module
directly into the context of a large-scale public-facing
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Adam Milford (Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery)
whatever was to occupy the stairwell space must extend
into other areas of the museum.
This particular group considered the implications of
making work for a museum such as this one beyond the
physical nature of the space. One of the key aims of this
module is to encourage students to question the social
and ethical implications of the roles of the curator, artist
and institution, and during assessments, this is one of the
key aspects of learning that students brought up when
asked what they felt they had gained from the module.
That is,that they now considered the setting of the work as
important to its meaning as its subject matter or form.
central to their understanding of
the relationships between artist,
institution and audience.
85
Case studies
Photoshop image showing one
student group’s final project
outcome. The sculpture was
designed to inhabit the specific
space in the museum stairwell,
I would like in particular to acknowledge Marianne Torrance and
Joan Dawson as collaborators in the design of this module/pathway.
Further reading
Bourriaud, N. (1998) Relational Aesthetics, France: Les PresseDu Reel.
Castells, M. (2000) The Information Age: Economy, Society andCulture:
First Volume, The Rise of the Network Society, London: Blackwell.
Doherty, C. (2004) Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation,London:
Black Dog Publishing.
Foster, H. (1985) Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics, Seattle:
Bay Press.
Knabb, K. (2007) Situationist International Anthology.
Kolb, A. and Kolb, D. ‘Learning Styles and Learning Spaces:Enhancing
Experiential Learning in Higher Education’ Academyof Management
Learning & Education, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 193–212.
Kwon, M. (2002) One Place After Another: Site Specific Art andLocational
Identity, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Adam Milford (Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery)
arts project. The high quality of the published outcome of
this project is further testament to the learning achieved
through the Critical and Curatorial Practices module at
PCA. If we are to produce students who are able to make
work in critical discourse with the contemporary art world
(museum, market, biennials, critics, Saatchi and all), then
we must encourage them, in the words of Guy Debord, to
‘drop their usual motives for movement and action… and
let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain
and the encounters that they find there.’
utilising the light that shines through
the window behind at particular
times of day.
86
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
87
Case studies
Creative Challenge:
Entrepreneurship education and research
Kerstin Mey and Uwe Derksen, University for the Creative Arts
The Creative Challenge is an exciting and inspiring
industry-led and research-directed programme for
undergraduate and postgraduate students developed
by Uwe Derksen, Assistant Director of Research and
Enterprise at the University for the Creative Arts together
with input by colleagues and industry. Now in its seventh
year, it invites and tests the applicability of students’
creative ideas and inquiry against real world demands.
Set in the context of the triple bottom line agenda (profit,
people, planet), it focuses not only on profit margins and
human self-interest but on societal challenges.
The premise for this pioneering, extra-curricular scheme
is formed by the insight that over 40% of art and design
students enter self-employment, according to a recent
Creative Graduates Creative Futures Forum (2010). Yet
most do not recognise entrepreneurial skills as intimately
connected to their career prospects or to critical inquiry
and its impact. Neither are students satisfied with the ways
this expertise is acquired within the academic curriculum.
Through extra-curricular interventions such as the
Creative Challenge students develop some of the important
skills associated with entrepreneurship, which includes the
translation of research and development into innovative
applications and viable business propositions.
The Creative Challenge has evolved over the years
and is underpinned by enterprise and pedagogic
research supported by UCA and the Higher Education
Entrepreneurship Group. It takes into consideration the
experience of student entrepreneurship support in the
Higher Education sector. The initiative invites students
to come up with a creative idea for a new product, service,
business model or process that demonstrates sustainability,
originality and innovation – the lifeblood of the creative
industries. Ideas should have the potential of becoming a
commercial success in the broadest sense of ‘exchange of
that which has value’.
The competition process launches with a series of initial
ideas workshops, followed by mentoring and face-to-face
coaching in order to enable students to research, articulate
and situate their ideas within real life contexts. These
elements are delivered with industry and business input
and underpinned through student peer learning. They
are designed to complement course programmes at both
Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels. The knowledge,
skills and experience gained through this extended
induction programme will be invaluable in helping
students achieve excellence in their chosen academic
programme of study; and the latter also informs their
germination and nourishment of creative ideas, as previous
or current course work can be used as a basis for the
articulation and advancement of Creative Challenge ideas.
The Creative Challenge culminates in an assessment
of the submitted and refined ideas by senior academic and
industry representatives. The competition winners are
awarded industry and business placements and a range of
other prizes that support their creative work in the future.
These have been made possible by sustained sponsorship
from the business and academic communities including
UCA Governors and alumni.
The Creative Challenge brings entrepreneurship and
the research and development embedded in it closer to
academic provision and offers students the opportunity
for credible business exposure, i.e. it highlights the real
world impact of research and development. Likewise,
this initiative provides the creative industries and
business communities with a platform to engage with
the University and its creative students and to inform
the academic curriculum.
88
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
89
Creative Challenge finalists
2010/11 with CC organising team
and guest speaker. From left:
Natasha Jasper-Cruse, Andrew
Tilling and far right: Parminder Vir
OBE; and Uwe Derksen, Head of
Creative Challenge.
Case studies
‘Blackpool Vistas’:
Rethinking theoretical studies in Art and Design
as research-led teaching
Jill Fernie-Clarke, Leeds College of Art
industries in regeneration, there was an increasing
requirement that the new programme be outward-facing.
A summary of the context for the initiation of the
Blackpool Vistas Project would therefore include the
following:
Context
Blackpool Vistas was initiated in 2006 in order to provide
an umbrella for focused ‘research activity’ for the staff and
students who were involved in a new MA programme. The
curriculum design of the resulting interdisciplinary MA
was based on the principle of research, analysis, synthesis
with the research and analysis for practice and theory
outcomes being one and the same. All activity was linked
to the student’s initial proposal for their own research
and practice, and Critical Studies modules were the focus
for group activity and the teaching of generic skills and
knowledge which could then be applied to individual
studio-based research projects.
In terms of the development of the overall context for
the MA, inspiration came from the Cumbria Institute of
the Arts (CIA) Landscape & Environment Symposium held
at the Lanternhouse in Ulverston in March 2005. At that
time CIA was an institution with aspirations to university
status and the desire to develop a research culture. Indeed,
throughout the North West, art and design departments
in HEIs had banded together to form a NW Universities
‘research group’ which organised the ‘Creative Dates’ event
at Liverpool John Moores University in 2004. ‘Creative
Dates’ provided a forum for research active staff from a
range of HE institutions to present their work. At both
events representatives from the University of Salford
presented the results of their work in the community.
‘Salford Reds’ (Haywood, 2007) was an example of
contextual practice that used local resources, theory and
practice. The focus of the majority of activity at the CIA
symposium was the immediate Cumbrian and North West
context, the local Landscape and Environment. Inspired by
the title of the symposium, a proposal for a panel of three
papers looking at the immediate Blackpool context was
offered and accepted.
The reception of the Blackpool papers at the Landscape
and Environment symposium was positive, indicating to
the panel that the Blackpool context was worthy of study.
Simultaneous with the realisation that Blackpool might
offer potential in terms of arts-based research, there
were other developments in town. The curator at The
Grundy Art Gallery was keen to utilise and celebrate the
Blackpool identity in his exhibition programme. A new
creative director had been appointed at the illuminations
department of the Borough Council, and the North West
Development Agency’s ‘Creative Lancashire’ had appointed
a Blackpool-based representative charged with supporting
the creative industries and organising networking events
in the town. In addition to these developments, the MA
programme was also charged with the task of improving
graduate retention and, against a backdrop of discussions
about the role of education and of the arts and creative
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Case studies
Introduction
Much of the information and observations presented
here are drawn from primary sources, direct personal
experience, action, and from first-hand involvement in
the delivery of Critical and Contextual Studies in Art and
Design in Higher Education. This is a reflection upon
specific collaborations and on the aspects of creativity that
result from juxtapositions and contact with others.
The importance of the relationships of creative
individuals with things outside themselves is occasionally
acknowledged in biographies, monographs and exhibitions
where concessions may be made to ‘influences’. Design
histories and the social history of art have their respective
niches, but generally, the notion of the creative, talented
individual still dominates art education; the vast majority
of documentaries, books and exhibitions about the visual
arts support this view. Our Higher Education system in
Art and Design mirrors this approach, with the normal
culmination of three years of undergraduate study being
the student’s ‘final show’ and the Final Major Project
(FMP) which demonstrates the creativity and skills
acquired by the individual. Whilst undergraduates are
usually required to contextualise their work, and are
usually encouraged to relate it to ‘real’ scenarios, the main
emphasis of contemporary degree courses is upon the
individual and the product(s) of their creativity.
The Blackpool Vistas project demonstrates that
‘contextual practice’ – wherein individual creativity is
actively applied to contextual ends – is an area of activity
where it is possible for theory, creativity and practice
to meet. It is clear that outside academic frameworks
‘creatives’ are working within a complex network of
intersecting social, political and commercial contexts. The
project was an attempt to use contextual practice to connect
the educational context with the immediate external social
and artistic context and to create opportunities for staff
and students to contextualise their work. What follows is
a description of how ‘contextual practice’ was used in the
Blackpool Vistas project (BV), offering potential models of
creative, collaborative and contextual practice.
90
• A non-university town with unique identity and
untapped potential in terms of it being the subject for
arts-based research.
• The ‘Creative Industries’ appeared to be high on the local
government agenda.
• A number of local contacts were willing to collaborate,
these include The Grundy Gallery; Blackpool
Illuminations; local artists’ and Creative Lancashire.
• A rt and Design departments in the North were
mobilising to collaboratively support research in Art
and Design.
Thinking ahead to the dissemination of arts-based
research in Blackpool there was also a need to develop an
infrastructure for showing student work in the town so
that more local first-hand encounters with exhibited work
could take place and students’ work could be made visible
and to facilitate relevant connections with the immediate
context. Inspired by the CIA’s Landscape and Environment
symposium held at the Lanternhouse, Ulverston and by
that town’s annual arts festival, there was also the idea of
organising an ‘event’ that would provide a focus for the
production and exhibition of work.
This thinking led to an initial meeting between
academic staff, Creative Lancashire and arts staff from
The Blackpool Vistas Arts
Festival 2007, booklet cover
local government including the Blackpool Illuminations
Department. The idea of an arts event matched the
thinking of local government and out of this emerged plans
for an ‘arts festival’ to involve local artists, students and
College staff.
The underpinning theoretical context
A cohesive set of concepts were needed in order to set the
context for visual enquiry and to present a direction for the
visual work. These came from the theorist Louis Althusser
(Hall, 1985) and authors Peter Stallybrass and Allon
White (1986) who discuss the ways in which images can
present an ideological transformation of a social formation.
In particular Stallybrass and White were interested in
representations of transgression. This had been discussed
in one of the Blackpool papers presented at the Landscape
and Environment symposium which looked at televised
representations of Blackpool, their relationship to long
established narrative traditions, and the figuration of
the urban environment as dangerous to morals. Rather
than showing the ‘realities’ of contemporary Blackpool
TV drama series such as Funland (2005) and Blackpool
(2004) represented the town according to an established
set of conventions that showed it as having a corrupting
influence. This could be interpreted as an ideological
transformation, an idea explored in a paper (which grew
out of the initial Blackpool Vistas paper presented in 2005)
and which was developed and published as Contemporary
Carnival: Blackpool and the symbolic suspension of real-life
(Fernie-Clarke 2007). Underpinning the Blackpool Vistas
project was the impetus to produce positive images of
92
the town, images that challenged the established mode
of showing it to be dissolute, corrupting and negative.
The visual work was to offer a direct effort to improve
perceptions of the town through the production of imagery
that purposely defied existing stereotypical representations
of Blackpool.
The Blackpool Vistas Arts Festivals 2007/2008
Planning began in 2006 and the first symposium titled
Blackpool Vistas: Representation, transformation, regeneration
took place at Blackpool and the Fylde College on the
14th February 2007. Exhibitions were held in the College
and at several venues externally, including a nightclub, a
coffee bar and the studios of a local artists’ collective. In
addition to students’ exhibits there were also associated
exhibitions of work by local artists. In order to further
contextualise the festival information was published on the
associated Blackpool Vistas website, which was active from
2006–2011and which included active links to other arts
organisations and participating artists’ personal websites.
Contributors to the first event included:
• Yannick Dixon’s Blackpool: An Unimagined Space?
on show in The Foyer, The School of Art & Design,
Palatine Road.
• Gwen Jones – ‘The Comrades Club’- a site of difference?
showing on the staircase, Orb Artists’ Studios.
• Paul Rogers – Touching the Horizon II at the coffee
bar Barista.
• Nick Kowalski and Orb Artists’ Studios who presented
Post-ed an exhibition of contemporary work based on
Blackpool held at The Comrades Club, Adelaide Street.
• 1000 Degrees North III, an exhibition of photographic
work by Blackpool students and alumni at nightclub
Beat.
• M A student Garth Bucknill’s Areas of the Sublime
on show in The Lecture Theatre, The School of Art &
Design, Palatine Road.
To coincide with this, and advertised on the Blackpool
Vistas promotional material, The Grundy Art Gallery
showed the work of local emergent artist Stuart
Edmondson and the illuminations ran a ‘Festival of Light’.
Undergraduates also contributed with a graphics project
titled ‘Conversations’ which involved Level 4 students
working on Blackpool-inspired typographic work that
was published as a book of postcards on sale at the events.
The speakers at the symposium included colleagues from
the Manchester Metropolitan and Salford Universities
as well as local artists, members of staff, students and
an interested publisher. Papers were grouped according
to the conference theme which was ‘Representation,
transformation, regeneration’, acknowledging the agendas
of agencies promoting the ‘Creative Industries’ in the
region. A fee was charged in order to offset the cost of
catering and it was attended by academics, members of
the public and practitioners, as well as HE students at all
levels of study.
Following the positive reception of the 2007 events a
similar festival took place in 2008 which involved students
at all levels of undergraduate and postgraduate studyas
exhibitors, presenters or delegates.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
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Case studies
Blackpool Vistas 09
In 2009 the theoretical context of the project remained the
same, i.e. the transformation of thinking about Blackpool
through work that attempted to change perceptions and
challenge stereotypical representations of Blackpool. The
continued enquiry into the Blackpool context (described in
the abstract above) was funded by Arts Council England
and was focused specifically upon the ‘Comrades Club’,
which had been included in the previous events as an
exhibition space. In 2009 it was the subject of research and
related art work which took the form of an installation. The
Club also hosted the symposium and associated exhibitions
of work.
Conclusion
From 2006–2009 the Blackpool Vistas project offered
HE staff, students and local artists a focal point and a
context in which to exhibit, talk about and promote their
work and the project became an integral part of an MA
programme. It harnessed the desire of local agencies and
artists to act together in order to create a context for work
produced in the town, and as demonstrated above, relied
on the collaborations between students and the wider
academic, artistic and local communities. It facilitated
interdisciplinary contact between staff, students and local
practitioners as well as contact between undergraduate
and postgraduate students. It was organised and facilitated
by ‘contextual practitioners’ who were simultaneously the
staff delivering Critical and Contextual Studies across
the School and who, because of their continued working
across disciplines, and levels, and their involvement in the
94
development of an interdisciplinary MA, were able to act
with relative impartiality to involve multiple partners,
to collaborate in order to do ‘research’, and to provide a
generic theoretical context for the visual work of staff and
students. The author of this chapter continued to work on
the Blackpool context beyond the end of the Blackpool
Vistas project with the publication ‘Visitors, Leisure,
Pleasure and Ideological Practice: Blackpool Coronation
Street and the Low-Other’ in 2010, further investigating
the relationships between representations of the town
and visitor behaviour.
This demonstrates that those working successfully
to deliver Critical and Contextual Studies across art &
design disciplines are perhaps uniquely, and ideally,
placed to initiate the creation of a context for the practicebased research produced by students, to bring together
practitioners and theorists from different disciplines
and to interface with external partners. This also points
towards the possibility that the Contextual Skills
curriculum could move away from the emphasis on
history, theory and the individualism of the practitioner,
to incorporate the study of and participation in projects
such as this, involving collaborative work, relevant
theoretical perspectives, practice and awareness of
the interplay and complexity of contemporary art and
design contexts.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Further reading
Alsop, J. (1982) The Rare Art Traditions: the history of art collecting and
its linked phenomena wherever they have appeared New York: Harper
and Row.
E. Barker, E., Webb, N., and Woods, K. (1999) The Changing Status of
the Artist, London: Yale University Press in association with The
Open University.
BBC TV (2004) Blackpool.
BBC TV (2005) Funland.
Buck, L and Dodd, P. (1991) Relative Values: or what’s art worth?
London: BBC Books.
The Crafts Council, www.craftscouncil.org.uk
[Accessed 25th April 2011].
Fernie-Clarke, J. (2004) [Chapter 5.] ‘The Print Trade’ in The Cries of
London its history and meanings PhD Thesis submitted to the
Manchester Metropolitan University.
Fernie-Clarke, J. (2007) ‘Contemporary Carnival: Blackpool and the
symbolic suspension of real-life’ in. Spalding, R., & Brown A.
(eds.) Entertainment, Leisure and Identities, Newcastle: Cambridge
Scholars Press.
Fernie-Clarke, J. (2010) ‘Visitors, Leisure, Pleasure and Ideological
Practice: Blackpool Coronation Street and the Low-Other’ in
Recording Leisure Lives: Holidays and Tourism in 20th Century
Britain in Snape, R. and Smith D. (eds.) Brighton, Leisure Studies
Association.
Haywood, P., Heeley, J., and Kennedy, M. (2007) ‘Art and Public
Liaison: Salford Reds’ International Journal of the Arts in Society:
Volume 1, Issue 5.
Hutchinson, S.C. (1968) The History of the Royal Academy, 1768–1968,
London: Robert Royce.
Liverpool Biennial, www.biennial.com [Accessed 25th April 2011].
QAA, (2010) Subject Benchmark Statements, www.qaa.ac.uk [Accessed
25th April 2011].
Reynolds, J.(1971) Seven Discourses, 1778 Yorkshire: Scholar Press.
Stallabrass, J.(2004) Art Incorporated:The story of contemporary art,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stallybrass, P. &.White, A. (1986) The Politics and Poetics of
Transgression, New York: Cornell University Press.
Taylor, R. (1986) Educating for Art: Critical Responses and
Development, London: Longman.
Thistlewood, D.(1989) Critical Studies in Art and Design Education,
Essex: Longman Group.
University of Brighton, Post-war curriculum and assessment:
Coldstream, Summerson, art history and complementary studies,
www.arts.brighton.ac.uk [Accessed 25th April 2011].
95
Case studies
Glassblowing:
A sustainably viable creative practice
Ian Hankey, Plymouth College of Art
I never really thought of myself as a researcher, perhaps
because I left school without any formal qualifications.
School on the outskirts of Merseyside was more a
question of crowd control rather than education. It was
a surprise to me that I began to excel at the theoretical
aspects of the engineering craft apprenticeship onto
which I was lucky enough to be accepted. It seems that
where there is a practical problem that needs to be
resolved, it suits my learning style.
The confidence I began to develop during my
apprenticeship eventually led to a degree in 3
dimensional design followed by a Master’s Degree in
glassmaking at The Royal College of Art. My experience
of seven years as technical instructor in hot glass, a
PGCE and four years managing a creative business both
in the UK and the USA placed me in a position to teach,
and my PGCE allowed me to develop ideas which form
the basis of my research.
I am incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to
take time out of my Masters Degree to work for Simon
Moore in the mid 1990’s as a glassmaking assistant.
I now consider this the most important learning
experience of my life. In his early career Simon was
glassmaking assistant to Ronnie Wilkinson, a master
glassmaker at Whitefriars Glass, a factory that can
trace its origins back to 1720, and closed in 1980. As
Ronnie passed on a great deal of skill to Simon, Simon
passed on some of that skill to me; I think it is absolutely
essential to pass the skill that I possess on to as many
people as possible.
Technique, manufacturing and the Art School
Because of my practical engineering background, I have
always considered the acquisition and application of
practical skill as at least as important as the development
of creative ideas. The way glassmaking has been taught
in Art Colleges since the late 1960s has been heavily
influenced by a quotation from one of the early pioneers
of art glass, Harvey Littleton. His phrase, ‘Technique is
cheap’ (Stankard, 2001) became a central theme of this
new and exciting art glass movement. The ramifications
of this approach can still be felt today where skill, and by
this I mean the traditional skill found in factories, can be
seen as restrictive to the creative process. Littleton never
intended to devalue technique in the hands of a creative
maker, only intending to point out that ‘technique in and
of itself is nothing’ (Byrd, 2001). This fresh and liberating
approach, advanced by Littleton and Sam Herman who
came to the UK from the USA to establish the first art
glass studio at the Royal College of Art (RCA), also heavily
influenced the Ceramics department, particularly when
the two disciplines were combined. Craftspeople such as
Alison Britain chose to ‘by-pass’ their skills to produce
fabulous work, using what many would consider rough
workmanship, that somehow continued to display a
masterful tacit understanding of materials and processes.
Unfortunately, there is a world of difference between
a maker like Alison Britain and someone emulating that
approach, producing rough workmanship to the best
of their practical ability, and this is where I can see a
real problem that needs to be dealt with by researchers
and teachers. Over the years, we have lost the practical
knowledge of the factories as we have searched for new
ways of pushing back the boundaries of contemporary
craft, with the craftsperson increasingly searching for new
meaning to their art. While this has gone on, we have all
but lost our manufacturing industries in ceramics and glass
in the UK. The problem is, technique is no longer cheap. It
is becoming increasingly rare, and in the case of some tacit
skills, already lost.
There is a necessity for the re-evaluation of tacit
knowledge within our administrative and political
structures. In modern society, where technical rationality is
dominant mode of thinking, the working practitioner has
very little credibility or voice. All my work is an attempt
to square the circle:joining learning and making a living;
history with the future; valuing the whole person; learning
as much as writing. My current research is an aspect of
this determination to look to the past for what could be
used in the future, just as I use a historical lens to view how
tacit skills were valued in the past and how they could and
should be valued again.
The Research Context
It occurred to me that the Venetian glassmakers used clay
pots which would have to have been ‘glazed’ using a small
amount of pre-melted ‘cullet’ which would then be ladled
around the walls of the crucible, thereby protecting the pot
from damage. With this knowledge, I developed a way of
melting the Venetian glass and worked with it. The results
astonished me. This 17th century glass has tremendous
working characteristics compared to our modern glass
recipes. When I experienced working with this formula,
I knew instinctively that this glass was developed by a
glassmaker. In that period many craftspeople had the same
credibility as scientists or technologists; if we go further
back in history we see Leonardo Da Vinci painting the
Mona Lisa, producing analytical drawings of the workings
of the human body and designing helicopters, weapons
and fortifications. The ancient Greek root word ‘tech’ in
technology, is in fact ‘art’, or more precisely artisan. So
in fact, technology could be described as ‘artology’. There
equality of credibility of between the artist, scientist or
craftsperson existed because they could well be disciplines
practiced by the same person. In terms of conceptual
understanding, reflective rationality was the only mode of
thinking available. This results in a ‘try it and see’ kind of
research. Since then, for the most part art and science have
separated and become two very different disciplines, which
in turn require equally different kinds of rationality.
Modern glass is not made to recipes developed by
glassmakers but rather developed by technicians looking
at chemical compositions. What is important in these
recipes is the clarity required in batch production under
rapid conditions. In other words glass recipes are designed
to support industrial conditions, but they are not set
up to be sympathetic to the maker. The problems of
industrialisation are systemic: as industry became more
dominant, society required an increasingly complex
structure. Administrative and political systems became
more and more specialised, with a corresponding negative
effect on the craftsperson. Once the link between the
recipe and the process was broken in glassmaking the
craftsperson could only specialise more. This way of
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Case studies
The RGH 1 prototype glass
furnace, based on 17th century
ideas of sustainable design, with
the gloryhole used to reheat the
conceptualising administrative intervention in educational
and administrative systems is known as technical
rationality and follows three main assumptions:
There are general solutions to practical problems. These
solutions can be developed outside practical situations (in
research or administrative centres).
The solutions can be translated into teachers’ actions by
means of publications, training administrative orders etc.
(Altrichter, Posch & Somekh, 1993)
The most crucial aspect of modern technical rationality
is that administrative and political change is decided
outside the working environment and handed down the
chain of management to the practitioner in the form of
instruction or training.
Before the industrial revolution and the complex explicit
administrative systems that accompanied it, the preferred
mode of thinking was that of reflective rationality which, in
contrast, follows three very different assumptions:
Complex practical problems demand specific solutions.
These solutions can be developed only inside the context
in which the problem arises and in which the practitioner is
a crucial and determining element. The solutions cannot be
successfully applied to other contexts but they can be made
accessible to other practitioners as hypotheses to be tested
(Altrichter, Posch& Somekh, 1993).
The most significant aspect of reflective rationality
was that any change was made within the practitioners’
working environment. Solutions to problems were found in
the glassmakers’ working environment, inside the context
in which the problem arises.
These days every person who works in a large organisation
has to have their role defined, and as a society we have
become accustomed to having our roles defined on
paper in a contract of employment. But as we know, tacit
skills such as those belonging to the glassmaker cannot
be articulated into words. As such, it is impossible to
define the glassmakers’ role (or that of any practitioner)
adequately. The problem is that once we attempt to make
a system transparent, we must try to define it in order for
it to be understood. As it is impossible to articulate the
tacit elements, what is left is only what can be adequately
described. The tacit elements, those vital ingredients
that are needed to achieve quality in anything that we do,
are lost.
The Research Project
Ten years ago, I began working in my spare time on a
design for a new type of glass furnace that uses reflective
rationality at its heart. Researching the development of
pre-17th century kiln technology has led to the design
of a new sustainable studio glass furnace with modern
technology and materials. Over the last three years, with
support from the Research Subcommittee at Plymouth
College of Art, I have been able to put the design
into practice. The aim of this research is to provide a
breakthrough for sustainable studio glass technology. This
way of working is far more labour-intensive, but this is
not a negative. With the glassmaker more in control of the
materials and the process, the skills that previously were
thought beyond modern knowledge are retrievable again.
In collaboration with Plymouth College of Art, Safelame
Ltd, Dartington Crystal and the Shops at Dartington,
I have placed a prototype furnace in a professional
environment in order to demonstrate that a sustainable
and viable business model for graduates is possible.
The project increases the capacity of PCA’s glass
facility and provides practical experiences for our students
via work-based learning, internship opportunities and
graduate start-up schemes. During the next year, a
larger furnace will be constructed for this site which will
incorporate crucibles, a gloryhole and annealing oven. As
with the current prototype, this new equipment will then
be tested and evaluated in a professional and business
context. The prototype furnace has consistently produced
good quality products, with a reduction in running costs of
well over 50%when compared with conventional furnaces.
When we consider that the furnace can be turned on only
when needed, and simply turned off when not in use, we
see the tremendous potential for the setting up of micro
businesses in a sector that is rapidly declining due to
spiralling energy costs and competition from high quality,
low cost imports.
The RGH 1 prototype glass furnace, based on 17th
century ideas of sustainable design, with the gloryhole used
to reheat the products as an integral part of the furnace
rather than a stand- alone unit which is expensive to
run. This furnace was built without measured drawings,
but uses the dimensions of standard refractory bricks
and the size of the crucible and an oil drum as concise
units of measurement. This ensures an extremely simple
design with no bricks to cut, and is an example of the
effective use of reflective rationality as a preferred mode of
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
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Case studies
products as an integral part of the
furnace rather than a stand – alone
unit which is expensive to run.
Jodie Burns, part time Plymouth
College of Art BA student making
glass vases at the Dartington
Worksop. Jodie is experiencing the
development of tacit skill working in
a professional environment, dealing
directly with the public and
maintaining and building furnace
equipment. These experiences
complement the existing glass
programme at Plymouth College
of Art.
thinking when designing and building new or innovative
equipment. It costs £40 per day to run on bottled propane
and can run on natural gas at an estimate of £25 per day,
and can reach working temperature in only 4 hours from
cold. Similarly it can be turned off at the end of the day
without damage to crucible or combustion chamber. In
comparison, standard furnaces take days to heat up, many
costing over £100 a day to run and need to be on day and
night, sometimes over the lifetime of the furnace.
At a theoretical level, the whole project is actually
about tacit skill: the fact that we know more than we can
say. Many years ago I worked for a few months as a plumber
in a large housing estate. We worked in teams of five and
specialised in one day central heating installations. I
worked in a team that generally finished the job by 2pm
each day (we were paid by the job, not by the hour). As the
junior member it was my job to hang the radiators on the
walls. On my 1st day, the foreman found me measuring
up with a tape and a level, as I was taught during my
apprenticeship. He took them off me and told me that he
would sack me if he saw me with them again. I thought
this was unprofessional and shoddy until he demonstrated
how he wanted the job done. He placed each radiator on
the floor at the points where they would be fitted. He drew
a pencil line across the top of the radiators and then pulled
the top away from the wall, noting where the brackets
would be, and drew two vertical lines at those points.
Where the two lines crossed would be the place where two
holes would be drilled. Once this was done, the bracket
would be placed in position and the lower screw hole could
be marked and drilled. This meant that instead of the job
taking four hours, I could have all the radiators on the
wall in less than an hour.
It also eliminated the risk of holes being slightly out,
causing instability problems and making the radiator
uneven. As the radiator was related to the floor in each
case, they always looked level to the eye and were always
the same distance from the ground which corresponded
to the distance between the top of the bracket to the top of
the radiator.
Far from being unprofessional and shoddy, this method
was far more efficient and always looked good because it
was installed using the components and the immediate
environment as integral units of measurement. It formed
a local system, utilising tacit skill and knowledge,
developed by craftsmen in their working environment,
and is a great example of reflective rationality. The way I
was taught during my apprenticeship, developed outside
of the local environment and handed down in the form
of instruction and training, is an example of technical
rationality; societies preferred mode of thinking since the
industrial revolution.
The first vital component within the furnace is the
crucible, and each part of the furnace is designed around
that. Once we have the crucible, we can estimate the size
of the combustion chamber allowing for 6 or 7 inches of
ceramic fiber in the walls. Luckily, an oil drum is pretty
much perfect and saves a great deal in fabrication costs.
There are no dimensions on drawings here because none
are needed. The size of the bricks are used as units of
measurement which means that no bricks need to be cut
at the base of the furnace. Once we put the bricks on the
floor, we simply measure them and add 3mm to each edge
to find the size of the metal base plate. So from the size of
the crucible, we get the size of the combustion chamber.
From this we find the size of the brick base, which in turn
gives us the size of the metal base plate.
Using reflective rationality as the preferred mode of
thinking, the result is a furnace that is incredibly simple to
construct, allowing graduates to build their own equipment
and providing an alternative, viable and sustainable
business model. In terms of access to this research, the aim
is to put all the information about the construction of the
prototype furnace on line, in the public domain through
open access, as it is only through the free distribution of
information that we can stop and reverse the devastating
decline in the glassblowing sector.
The workshop was built and furnace installed in one
month and opened in August 2011 in time for the ‘Making
Futures’ conference held at Dartington Hall and organised
by Plymouth College of Art (PCA) in September 2011. The
aim of the workshop is to prove the financial validity of a
small scale business that could be built in a small workshop
or even a garden shed, and to provide a professional
working environment for PCA students to train and
eventually run as an incubator unit after they graduate.
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Case studies
Nikki Crabb, Part time Plymouth
College of Art BA student working
with Ian Hankey to produce work to
be sold in the gallery at The Shops
At Dartington.
We have also had Foundation Degree students visiting the
workshop as part of their work-based learning module,
and place great emphasis on interacting with the public,
offering the opportunity to experience a craft which is now
regarded as an endangered subject.
Conclusion
Underpinning this practical research is a deeper enquiry
into the place and position of tacit knowledge. Comparing
the technical rationality of today with pre-Industrial
Revolution reflective rationality, I suggest that our actual
mode of thinking, the way we think as a society, actively
undermines the importance and recognition of tacit skill.
The furnace that I have developed uses a historical impetus
for design. The design uses new materials to replicate
pre-17th century modes of thinking, techniques and glass
recipes. Working with these techniques and recipes means
that students find the glass is easier to work – it teaches
more about blowing glass, about the properties of glass
itself, than ‘normal’ furnace glass does. So students learn
more, and more quickly.
Finally, it is vital that we teach glass technology either
within our glass degree courses, or as an option that
complements the program. Graduate makers have in the
past left College as consumers when it comes to setting
up a business. Buying glass furnace equipment off the
shelf is extremely expensive and it is the main reason
students chose not to work in blown glass, considering it
to be too expensive and complex when viewed alongside
the technology and safety ramifications. Glassmaking
graduates of Plymouth College of Art will leave with the
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
103
technical knowledge and tacit understanding that allows
their creativity to thrive and continue to develop. For
technique is no longer cheap: it is increasingly rare, and
very precious indeed.
Further reading
Stankard, P. (2007) No Green Berries or Leaves, McDonald &
Woodward Publishing Company, Blacksburg. p. 82.
Byrd, J. F. (2001) ‘Interview of Harvey K. Littleton conducted
by Joan Falconer Byrd, March 15, 2001’, Nanette L. Laitman
Documentation Project for Craft in America, Smithsonian
Archives of American Art. p. 3.
Altrichter, H., Posch, P. and Somekh, B. (1993) Teachers investigate
their work: an introduction to the methods of action research.
Routledge, London. pp. 202–203.
Case studies
Theatre for Development
Lesley Haig, Matthew Hahn and Mark Griffin
St Mary’s University College
The undergraduate programme in Drama and Applied
Theatre at St Mary’s University College provides
opportunities for students to explore ways in which
theatre-based research and practice might actively
contribute to social and political change. The programme
works in partnership with a number of groups to deliver
health education and advocacy to local communities. This
allows students to understand and experience ways in
which drama techniques can be used to promote social
and political change. As part of the programme, students
take the Theatre for Development module, which requires
them to research the socio-political situation in a particular
country, research and pursue funding opportunities,
administrate fundraising events, galvanise support for
their work and create a range of performance pieces.
Field research
As part of the Theatre for Development module currently,
students travel to Africa and work with others in local
schools and with community groups. As well as exposing
them to a specific cultural context, students have an
opportunity to reflect on how their learning within
a British University can be further influenced and, if
necessary, challenged by the active practice of teachers
working in Africa. The visit to Africa in the students’
third year is the culmination of their training in Applied
Theatre. The trip introduces the students to the key
challenges in using drama to support national and
international development programmes. The Applied
Theatre programme works in partnership with Theatre
for a Change (TfaC) in Malawi. TfaC is a charity based
104
Top: Early planning in the creation
of an interactive forum piece.
Lilongwe, Malawi.
across countries in sub-Saharan Africa which uses
innovative strategies to stimulate dialogue, interaction and
behaviour change. TfaC aims to change attitudes towards
gender equality and HIV in the teaching communities of
these countries. TfaC’s long-term goal is to reduce the risk
of HIV infection amongst vulnerable groups. St Mary’s
staff played an active part in developing and delivering
this curriculum. Since May 2011, students from St Mary’s
have visited Lilongwe in Malawi and worked alongside
TfaC facilitators.
The main tool used by the students to develop the
performance piece is verbatim theatre. Verbatim theatre is
a form of theatre where the words of the people represented
on stage are faithfully recorded and structured into a
narrative which is presented to an audience in the form of
a play.
During the programme the students are trained in
interview techniques and in 2011 the cohort conducted
semi-structured interviews with male and female
volunteers who participate in support groups at
Positiveeast. Positiveeast is an East London HIV charity
that offers support for individuals and communities
affected by HIV and other UK charities that deal with
HIV. Participants were asked for their opinions on issues
relating to gender equality and safer sex. Interviews were
conducted either one to one or on a group basis, and were
recorded and transcribed. The interviews were edited into
a 60 minute play.
Distribution, impact and the future
The feedback from Positiveeast was extremely positive
following last year’s performance of the play, Turning
Poison into Medicine (original title, Living with HIV in
the UK). Several of those interviewed were in the audience
in February 2011 at St Mary’s and participated in the postshow feedback session. The play was performed outside
a school in Lilongwe to a captivated audience, and was
very well received by both Theatre for a Change and their
learners. The play was later filmed at Nickelodeon Studios
in central London to be distributed by MTV as a part of
the HIV awareness programme. There are also plans to
distribute it in student film festivals.
In 2012 the students have been creating a verbatim
piece of theatre entitled ‘Gender Balance & Safer Sex’ to be
researched in London and performed in Malawi. St Mary’s
Drama and Applied Theatre programme is currently
looking for new partners to expand its work throughout
southern Africa to offer a variety of experiences to the
St Mary’s students as well as to provide a sustainable basis
for knowledge exchange amongst participant groups.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
105
Further reading
www.dramastmarys.blogspot.co.uk
www.positiveeast.org.uk
www.tfacafrica.com
www.theatreoftheoppressed.org
Case studies
Bottom: A local man comes
from the audience to make an
intervention.
hedsor
hedsor is an artistic partnership between Kimberley
Foster and Karl Foster, who teach in Higher Education
at Norwich University College of the Arts (NUCA).
Their research practice as hedsor is supported by NUCA
and enhances their strategies of teaching and learning
within the institution. They have created nine ‘Object
Dialogue Boxes’; specifically made collections of unusual
and unfamiliar objects that are used to inspire creative
learning and inquiry. They have been commissioned for
major institutions that include Turner Contemporary,
Imperial War Museum, London, Museum of London
and Manchester Art Gallery. They have also have staged
a large-scale interactive exhibition of objects at the
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.
hedsor’s practice straddles the worlds of learning and
art practice, rationality and intuition, art interpretation
and art history. The Object Dialogue Boxes are artworks
that can be handled and used. The intention for creating
them is that they generate as much dialogue, creative
thinking and inquiry as possible. The Boxes usually consist
of approximately twenty unusual or unfamiliar art objects
created around a theme or subject. The objects are made to
work as interpretative devices with specific art collections
and exhibitions, but are versatile and ambiguous enough in
form to be used as teaching devices without their contexts.
The objects have dual functions – they meet aesthetic
conventions as art objects, whilst offering use as catalysts
to facilitate, or stimulate, learning and interpretation in a
plethora of settings.
The Boxes and processes have developed organically
over a period of ten years out of a need to imaginatively
engage learners in social and participatory inquiries in
museums and galleries. They are also utilised in arts
education to stimulate the dialogue and creative inquiry
that is essential to contemporary creative practices. This
organic expansion and development of hedsor’s practice
runs parallel to a general gallery/museum culture-shift
towards collaborative, co-constructive, dialogic, interdisciplinary, inquiry-based learning. Each strand of these
current educational terms finds embodiment in hedsor’s
expectations of how the objects will be used and thought
about. These learning strands are not additions to a
sculptural practice – they are the practice as much as the
physical form of the object is.
The objects are formed from unexpected combinations
of everyday items – certain unexpected combinations ‘fit’
or ‘resonate’ with each other. This usually happens when
two or more everyday items that have some kind of link are
merged. The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts exhibition
image (opposite) with the decoy pigeons, antlers and fake
apples gives a good example of this. We are familiar with
pigeons in trees and apples in trees, and with a little close
inspection could name the structure that they are placed
on as a pair of antlers. In combination, the antlers are read
as ‘tree’ and the deadness of all three seems heightened
giving the work an ‘uncanny’ feel (Freud, 1919). They form
something that is not easily knowable or nameable. To use
a metaphor coined by Richard Wentworth the three objects
become ‘emulsified’ ‘the elements bind but do not lose
their distinct character’ (Warner, 1993). There is a familiar
recognition of elements and at the same time enough
unfamiliarity to resist habitual responses.
The ‘bird and apple tree’ (none of the objects are titled)
was part of an exhibition of twenty objects created for
the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts exhibition ‘Object
Dialogues’ in 2010. This was an exhibition where handling
of the artworks was actively encouraged. The twenty
objects emerged from hedsor’s inquiry into the permanent
collection. Regular visits to the collection enabled the
authors to establish a list of themes in the form of single
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
107
This chapter outlines a creative research practice where
the distinctions between elements are deliberately
blurred. It reveals an artistic collaboration that
anchors itself in object making whilst at the same time
incorporating inquiry-based learning processes within
the work. The intention is to show how the unexpected
and unfamiliar can be embedded as an active principle
within an artwork and how this ‘surreal’ manifestation
can be used to facilitate positive changes in learning.
There will be a consideration of how hedsor objects come
into being and how they become gateways to specific
collections and related knowledge. The latter stages
of the article will indicate how theories and ideas find
practical application in inquiries, in both the artists’
studio, and in the museum or gallery setting. It discusses
how experiential learning plays an important part in
improving engagement for the learner, and gives an
indication of how learners respond. As an extension of
this it also considers the implications of cultivating the
voice through generous facilitation and modelling of
process, rather than teaching in a traditional sense.
All images © hedsor 2009, 2010
The importance of the unfamiliar and unexpected in creative teaching,
interpretation, and learning
Kimberley Foster and Karl Foster, Norwich University College of the Arts
Case studies
words that would set limits within which attention
might be focused. Usually this process is a collaborative
inquiry with museum or gallery staff. The second image
shows these words exhibited as a constellation on the
gallery wall (only half of the words are shown here). In
the making stage of these hedsor objects, everyday items
were found that had lateral rather than literal connections
to the words. This is a way of ensuring that any inquiries
stimulated by the hedsor objects would have a high
probability of being focused on issues within the collection.
The ‘bird and apple tree’ was inspired by recurring themes
– death, ritual, ritual costume, fate – and by the Roman
process of reading of the auspices. Material matches were
also considered - the presence of recurring materials such
as animal bone and hair.
The intention here, as it always is with hedsor objects,
was that the gallery learner would pick up the object – the
antlers can be detached from the inverted wooden fruit
bowl - and use it as a ‘compass’ to navigate their way
through the collection. The ‘unfamiliar’ hedsor objects
provide stimulus that have enough valency or ‘emotional
punch’ to force a halt, or reversal, to normal and routine
thought processes. The space that opens up in its wake
enables new thoughts or new questions to emerge. hedsor’s
expectation is always that links and dialogue will be made
without any prescription. Governing the selection of the
everyday objects by thematic strands encourages inquiry
within broadly set parameters.
Learning as creative exchange
The following text was written anonymously by a gallery
visitor in response to the hedsor objects in the ‘Object
Dialogues’ exhibition and put in a postbox set up within
the gallery. It eloquently describes what the objects do
for the learner:
‘I see (hear, feel, smell, touch) these objects as
openings – sometimes you can’t see beyond that but you
know somehow there’s a gap that you want to squeeze
through because what’s on the other side is unknown
and exciting.
You can turn certain parts of your brain off – and start with
a feeling not a concept – the connections bubble inside,
popping on the surface of an internal dialogue – is it pain?
Is it pleasure? Is it play? Then a thought or idea emerges
which you almost dismiss because it was unexpected and
is perhaps unwelcome.’
‘Now, where will we go with that idea? Now the door
is open…….now we have used these objects as ‘pokey
sticks’ messing up the ‘normal’ order of things – we will
hold it until, like a pair of magnets we are pulled towards
something with a ‘clang’ of clarity, as if it was meant to be.’
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
109
Case studies
For creative learning it is very important that the ‘pokey
sticks’ mess up the normal order of things, it is desirable
that students and gallery visitors alike have ‘bubbly’ minds.
The author of the comment also recognises the creative
need to allow the imagination to flourish for a while, the
conscious mind turned off momentarily, the ‘clang’ of
clarity as it returns in reflection.
As teachers, lecturers or gallery facilitators we need
this kind of creative energy from learners so that they can
contribute on a dialogic basis. As well as being catalysts,
the objects are perhaps symbols of the unknown in
learning and act as emblems of change. To use Coleridge’s
term, the objects bring about a ‘willing suspension of
disbelief’ (Coleridge, 1817), a temporary transition to
an imaginative footing, a space of ‘not knowing’. This
can be a frightening change for developing learners.
All new experiences test the tolerance for change and
reconfiguration, the psychoanalyst Donald Meltzer
stated, ‘It is the new idea that impinges on the mind as
a catastrophe, for in order to be assimilated, this sets in
flux the entire cognitive structure’. (Meltzer & Williams
1988) The introduction of the unfamiliar in the form
of hedsor objects provokes a small ‘catastrophe’, falling
apart at a low level. Initially the ‘pokey sticks’ messing
up the order of things provoke a reversal of the usual way
of approaching learning. Gaps appear in the mind of the
learner to allow new ideas in. The ‘naming’ and ‘knowing
process’ gradually closes these gaps, but some kind of
positive growth is allowed to take place. This process
is universal in learning and development, it is what is
referred to in staff development as the ‘implementation
dip’: Michael Fullen (2001), who coined the term, describes
it as ‘literally a dip in performance and confidence as one
encounters an innovation that requires new skills and
new understandings. All innovations worth their salt call
upon people to question and in some respects to change
their behavior and their beliefs — even in cases where
innovations are pursued voluntarily.’
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Institutions, learners and new bodies of knowledge
By commissioning an Object Dialogue Box an institution
implicitly begins a commitment to change. Those
institutions that already have a non-traditional approach
to learning usually have continuous development and
change at the core of their philosophy. Having an object
dialogue box and using it regularly is emblematic of
dynamic, fluid and creative learning. It represents a wider
commitment to continually seek out and develop new ways
of working. Changes in learning start with the gallery staff
– they are asked to use their experience of their galleries
to produce a list of thematic words that echo, or evoke,
issues within the collection. As a result, material fact
and specific knowledge reduce in importance and a small
degree of defamiliarisation occurs. According to Victor
Shklovsky the change in perception brought about by
defamiliarisation is how art begins. He states:
‘After we see an object several times, we begin to recognize
it. The object is in front of us and we know about it, but we
do not see it – hence, we cannot say anything significant
about it. Art removes objects from the automatism of
perception…’ (1917:5)
The intervention of hedsor pushes the familiar towards
the unfamiliar. Some institutions have more collective
tolerance for the unfamiliar than others. As mentioned
in the example given about words accumulated for
the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts it also sets the
parameters for a learning inquiry. Through artistic
inquiry hedsor constellate or cluster together these
words, with associated images, objects, texts, opinions
and anecdotes. The aim of this constellating process is to
find and establish non-literal nodal points, or gateways
into the issues and subjects within the collection. hedsor
objects provide, or stand as markers of these gateways,
promising a meandering pathway that starts with the
learner and progresses towards a body of knowledge.
In order to produce the physical form of Object
Dialogue Boxes the artistic inquiry transfers from the
gallery to the studio. The second phase of learning an
inquiry begins with the acquisition of everyday objects.
The ‘language’ of these objects might have an evocative or
ambiguous relationship with these nodal points. hedsor
acquire many such objects and add them to the mass
of inquiry materials already assembled. When laid out
in the physical space of the studio the process of their
transformation begins. As the assembled images, objects,
words etc are all within a given theme or constellation
the chances of unexpected conceptual and material
links between disparate elements are quite high. To use
a cooking metaphor, appropriate ingredients are put in
a big pan of water and left to ‘simmer’. The ‘simmering’
is in the collective mind of hedsor, thought happens
through materials with unexpected combinations
expected. Objects are played with, put next to, broken,
combined with words, combined with images, stacked,
sliced, photographed, used. It is process of deliberately
‘making strange’ (Sklovsky, 1917), a courting of the
unexpected and unfamiliar with an aim of making objects
that are a mental asset to inquiry processes in general.
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Case studies
Creativity, research and artistic practice
The relevance to students of the Arts in particular is the
part the unfamiliar or unknown plays in studio practice.
Faced with a brief, or self-negotiated studio practice,
artists must be able to defamiliarise themselves from
the everyday in order to see with fresh eyes. They must
be able to tolerate ‘not knowing’ where an inquiry might
be going in order to see something new. This is not a
mindless process; it is an immersion in a different way
of thinking. There is a change of state in the mind of
the artist, which precipitates less consciously prescribed
action. A description of how this condition comes about
is difficult, but the use of an ocular metaphor perhaps
comes closest. It is as though one’s aperture on life has
suddenly dilated and things that were hitherto invisible
in the world suddenly take on a vivid prominence. It
can feel like, after a lot of trying, one has finally learnt
to plate spin, and for a short time, all twenty plates are
atop their sticks needing only the slightest attention to
sustain their motion. Ideas, imagination technical skill
and a degree of self – understanding all galvanise in
material form. For a while the work seems to autosuggest;
it feels like the work wants to be made and you are merely
executing its bidding. This re-visioning of reality enables
Facilitation
In an art gallery setting the hedsor objects signpost
openings and unexpected ways into artworks. The
following two paragraphs give examples of the range
of creative inquiry that can be opened up in facilitated
sessions. For Manchester Art Gallery hedsor made an
object that consisted of an umbrella that had had its
protective cover removed. On the end of each prong was
a ping-pong ball with a rain-related word hand written
with marker pen. The Ping-pong words read ‘drip’, ‘drop’,
‘drench’, ‘deluge’. The umbrella allows people to connect
with something familiar, and yet unfamiliar. It has
no cover, no skin, and no protection: it is functionally
obsolete. To open it inside the gallery has elements
of an absurd performance, superstition also tells us
that it is unlucky to open an umbrella indoors. But,
this ‘was’ an umbrella. Opening it up might protect us
from something different, something like rain, un-rain
perhaps. Conversely, it might be an encouragement to
get drenched. With prosaic thinking thwarted questions
surface – learners want to know more. Knowing smiles
reveal awareness that something is ‘at play’. Why, what
about, when, does it, how? The un-brella is humorous, a
metaphor for rainy Manchester as well. The drip, drop,
drench nature of the north, the sound of the ping-pong
balls rattling against the metal frame as it is opened or
moved. Singing in the rain; open minds are flooded with
new ideas. Semi-closed and inverted the umbrella shrugs
off any certain or fixed thinking, the changing thing
changes. New thoughts emerge: spider, insect, something
mechanical. The object appropriates different space
through activation – the space of the sky between ‘brolly’
and clouds and the space underneath a spider – neither –
neither ‘correct’, both possible. ‘Getting it wrong’ does not
present itself as an issue in this kind of learning.
On one occasion this object was used by trainee
teachers to interpret the contemporary art collection.
After an initial modeling of how to inquire with the
objects by a freelance artist employed by the gallery, the
113
Case studies
new understanding to emerge, and helps the overlooked
to be reconsidered. Ideally an artist needs to be able to do
this at will; repeated defamiliarisation does not guarantee
that this will happen, but the propensity of it happening
increases.
Communicating this, or teaching this to another is
best done through an authentic learning experience: it
cannot simply be explained. hedsor’s objects present the
learner with an experience. The intuition required has to be
cultivated by repetition rather than accepted as transmitted
information from a teacher. The psychoanalyst Wilfred
Bion criticised didactic approaches discriminating between
‘a form of “learning from experience”, that changes the
learner, and “learning something” that might increase
information, but does not change the individual’ (LopezCorvo, p. 163). Teaching more traditional art skills such
as certain methods of representational drawing, painting,
composition, perspective etc. can be taught didactically
and in many ways are better taught this way. However,
the act of making something meaningful or culturally
significant can only happen through experiential learning
and reflection.
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
umbrella was presented to the group. As the group
moved around, a myriad of connections and links
began to emerge. At one moment it was part of a literal
connection to a Dorothy Brett painting of women
holding umbrellas or parasols. The teacher’s umbrella
‘suspended the disbelief’ in the image, it became easier
to enter into the painted space. Simultaneously the
materiality of the ‘real’ umbrella became heightened
– more rattle, harsher, more absurd. In front Francis
Bacon’s ‘Portrait of Henrietta Moraes on a Blue Couch’
the structure of the umbrella became bones flayed
of their skin. In front of a surreal painting where an
anthropomorphic object appeared as if in a desert, the
umbrella offered no protection from the sun. The ‘drip’,
‘drop’, ‘drench’ words referred to moisture that appeared
to be permanently absent. In front of ‘Vacuum’ by
Steven Pippin – a big transparent rabbit with an untuned television set within its head – the umbrella
became a much-needed antenna. Animated discussion
turned to the Jodrell Bank Observatory and eventually
to DNA sequencing through which the ping-pong balls
became some kind strange of genetic model.
The point of including this anecdote is that the
open inquiry of the teachers followed the issues of
interest of that specific group, strange and fleeting
links were given time alongside more serious and in
depth questions. In the absence of ‘right’ or ‘prescribed’
answers that needed to be sought, participants were
able to give voice to unexpected and imaginative
questions. In all cases the facilitation of this kind
of learning is key, hedsor conducted and modelled a
method of inquiry both in the studio and in front
of the artworks. This approach imitated and is
implemented by proxy by artists employed by the
gallery. Modelling the use of the umbrella as a creative
catalyst that works eases people into using the object
dialogue box. It demonstrates there are no right or
wrong answers, just thoughts, ideas, expressions,
consideration, triggers and approaches to allow one to
move from looking to seeing.
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
over them. Inroads to new thoughts develop and new
connections are made. New forms of learning, inquiry
and creative dialogue happen that we have no control
over. They form new and independent pathways to
creative research.
Conclusion
Learning and change are interchangeable as central
conditions of hedsor practice, learning and research as
exploration and change course through every process.
Invitations to demonstrate methods of working
transform into commissions for new boxes. Bridges
are made to new ways of thinking; tools are developed
as ways of navigating gallery spaces. Links are looked
for; uncovered, and collated, questions are posed. The
surplus is hived off. Thoughts are grounded, other
artists researched, architecture is echoed, curatorial
concerns are considered, and audience groups are held
in mind. The objects are made as distillations and
manifestations of all this – thoughts and concepts
transformed into concrete moments that can be held,
questioned and uncovered. The museum or gallery
ultimately takes these objects as their own, they
claim them, and digest them. They find their own
ways of using them. Finally, but most importantly the
dialogue begins with the people who use the objects,
for the time they hold the objects they take ownership
115
Further reading
Coleridge, S.T. (1817) ‘Biographia Literaria’. Available at
www.gutenberg.org [accessed 22nd June 2012].
Freud, S. (1919) The ‘Uncanny’. In: Art and Literature. Dickson,
A. (ed. 1990) London: Penguin Books. Volume 14 p. 335.
Fullen, M. (2001) The Implementation Dip. [online] downloaded
as pdf. Available at: www.learningforward.org/news
getDocument.cfm?articleID=1248 [accessed 22nd June 2012].
Lopez-Corvo, R.E. (2003) The Dictionary of the work of W.R.
Bion. London: Karnac.
Meltzer, D. & Harris Williams, M. (1988) ‘Aesthetic Conflict:
its place in development’, in The Apprehension of Beauty – The
Role Of Aesthetic Conflict In Development, Art And Violence.
1–7, Perthshire: Clunie Press.
Shklovsky, V., (1917) Art as Technique. www.fas.harvard
edu/~cultagen/academic/shklovsky1.pdf [accessed 22nd
June 2012].
Originally published: Lodge, D. (ed. 1988), Modern Criticism and
Theory: A Reader (London: Longmans, pp. 16–30.
Warner, M. (1993) Richard Wentworth. London:
Thames & Hudson.
Case studies
The Vacation Research Assistantship Scheme
John-Paul Wilson, University of Worcester
This chapter presents an overview of a scheme run by
the University of Worcester, which aims to provide
undergraduate students with the hands-on experience of
working on a research project over the summer vacation
while at the same time enabling its staff to progress a
project and to gain valuable experience in supporting and
developing a researcher. While this scheme is not unique
– for example, the British Psychological Society has run
a similar Undergraduate Research Assistantship Scheme
for some time – it is a model of engaging undergraduate
students with research, and of embedding research in their
learning experience that is not commonly utilised.
Details of the scheme
The Vacation Research Assistantship Scheme ran for the
first time in 2011, with up to six research assistantships
initially made available. As noted, the scheme’s stated aim
was to offer students – current Worcester undergraduates
and in addition students who have completed an
undergraduate degree at Worcester or at another university
(with a First or 2:1 predicted/achieved) and who are about
to commence postgraduate studies at the University of
Worcester – with the opportunity to work on a research
project, thus gaining invaluable insight into a research
career as well as developing a range of core research skills.
The scheme identified a wide range of appropriate activities
for the Research Assistant (RA) to engage in, such as:
photocopying and filing; copy-editing and proof-reading;
recruitment of participants; data entry and transcription;
undertaking literature searches; conducting experiments;
and analysing data. The scheme provided a stipend of
116
The scheme attracted sixteen applications representing
six academic Institutes and twelve subject areas. The
selection panel appointed to assess the applications and
to make recommendations for funding focused on the
quality of the proposal as submitted and particularly on the
description of the RA’s role and the support to be offered.
The panel favoured those applications which clearly
Funded Projects
The quality of applications was high and as a consequence
the selection panel identified nine projects as suitable
for funding through the scheme and then ranked these
projects. It was subsequently decided to fund all nine
recommended projects which were as follows:
The funded projects were extremely varied in scale
and scope. Some were ongoing projects where the RA was
appointed to undertake a specific stage or task within the
project (Fabricatore; Lewis; Wakeham). So, for example,
Dr Lewis requested an RA to analyse a specific category of
material excavated from a number of archaeological sites
which would contribute to the excavation reports and to
two journal articles. Others were discrete projects to be
completed over the summer (Arielli; Cinpoes; Mason). A
good example is Dr Arielli’s project which required the
RA to undertake the transcription and indexing of ten
audio recordings of interviews with veterans of the ArabIsraeli War of 1948. The work would contribute to a journal
article but it was also intended to add the transcriptions
to the oral history collection in the Hive, Worcester’s
Library and History Centre. Others were evaluation
projects (Jones; Upton). In the case of Dr Upton’s project,
the RA was employed on a large project commissioned by
Wolverhampton Primary Care Trust (and primarily funded
by Department of Health West Midlands) to evaluate the
‘Food Dudes’ healthy eating programme. The researcher
would be involved with the data entry and analysis stage
of the evaluation. Yet another was a pilot project (Popova)
the focus of which was on developing a ‘code of practice’ to
pilot with UG students undertaking independent studies
with their supervisors. A number of projects involved
external partners: for example, Dr Cinpoes’ project was
a collaboration with the Worcester Cathedral Library in
which the RA would develop a multimedia resource for
manuscripts in the Library collection.
The research assistantships were advertised to students
in May and attracted 163 applications. The largest
percentage of applications (40%) came from students in
their penultimate year, with a little more than half that
number coming from final year students and from students
waiting to commence postgraduate study in the following
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
117
Case studies
£1000 to the research assistant. It was required that the
RA be employed on the project over the summer vacation,
that is between June and September, but allowed for
flexibility in working patterns - for example, the RA could
be employed for 4 weeks full-time or for 8 weeks at 0.5 FTE
– subject to the requirements of the project.
Staff were invited to submit applications to the scheme
in early Spring to include:
• A brief project proposal outlining the context for
the project, the aims and objectives, the proposed
methods, and intended outcomes/outputs, as well as
separate statements on any ethical or health & safety
issues relating to the project.
• A role descriptor setting out the activities expected of
the RA and the intended working pattern.
• A person specification describing any necessary or
desired skills/knowledge that would be required for
the project, e.g. knowledge of specific techniques or
software packages.
• A n account of the benefits to the RA, such as the skills
to be developed, as well as details of supervision,
support and training to be provided.
articulated the duties of the RA, whether within a small,
short-term project or as part of a larger project team. It
also favoured those that sought to develop a range of skills
through activities appropriate to undergraduate applicants.
To expand on this, some projects not recommended for
funding proposed activities that were beyond the likely
skill set of an undergraduate and which could not be
reasonably developed over the period of the project. In
contrast some projects demanded too little of the RA,
asking them to undertake only administrative tasks. While
it was deemed reasonable to include such tasks in the duties
of the RA, it was felt that these should be supplemented
by other more developmental tasks. The panel also
wished to see projects that had very clear outputs at the
end of the Vacation Research Assistantship and not just
at some indeterminate point in the future, whether these
were journal articles on which the RA would be a named
author or some other form of output such as a report, a web
resource or a database.
Principal Investigator
Dr Nir Arielli
Institute/Research Centre
Humanities & Creative Arts
Subject Area
History
Project title
British volunteers in the Israeli armed
forces, 1948–1949
Dr Nicoleta Cinpoes
Humanities & Creative Arts
English Literature
Manuscripts for the Web 2.0 Age
Dr Carlo Fabricatore
Business School
Computing
A study of violence in videogames from a
design perspective
Ruth Jones
Health & Society
Social Care
An Evaluation of Worcestershire
Safeguarding Board’s Pilot on Return
Interviews with children and young people
who go missing from home or care
Dr Jodie Lewis
Science & Environment
Archaeology
Analysis of a Molluscan assemblage from
Langley’s Lane, Midsomer Norton, Bath
and North-East Somerset
Dr Victoria Mason
Health & Society
Psychology
All trials are not created equal: a
quantitative analysis of trial quality and
effect size in randomised control trials of
cognitive behaviour therapy for chronic
low back pain
Dr Anna Popova
Education
Education
A ‘code of practice’ for supervisors and
students working on level 6 independent
study projects
Dr Penney Upton
Health & Society
Psychology
Evaluation of the ‘Food Dudes’
Programme
Dr Alison Wakeham
National Pollen & Aerobiology
Research Unit
Aerobiology
Investigation of the extraction,
immunoquantification and optimal
storage of target allergen as isolated from
household dust
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
academic year. 14% came from students in their first
year. It is perhaps to be expected that students coming to
the end (in most cases) of their second year of study and
looking forward to their final year – and the prospect of
undertaking their own dissertation – might be most likely
to apply to this scheme. 66% of applicants were female;
while the highest proportion (44%) fell into the age group
19–24. These demographics closely match those of the
University’s undergraduate population as a whole.
Students were appointed to the research assistantships
though a standard interview process, which in most
cases included a work-based task specific to the project.
Unsurprisingly, eight of the students appointed were
undertaking or had recently completed a degree in a
directly allied subject area (although this was a prerequisite for just one of the projects). Only the student
appointed as Dr Popova’s RA was undertaking her degree
in a different academic Institute.
Feedback on the scheme
The scheme was received very positively by staff and
students and by parties in instances where a project
had external engagement. This is reflected in feedback
sought by the Personnel department on the recruitment,
selection and induction process and by informal feedback
but primarily in the End of Project reports. A requirement
of the scheme was that the Principal Investigator, in
association with the RA, should complete such a report:
identifying if the aims and objectives as established in the
initial application had been met; describing the activities
undertaken by the student; setting out the output(s) from
119
the project (both completed and in train); and reflecting
on the benefits to the student. The end of project reports
demonstrate that most projects achieved the objectives
as set out in the initial applications. Most projects also
produced at least one output (such as a report or website)
or will produce at least one output (such as a peer reviewed
journal article) in light of the work done during the
research assistantship.
The reports are most interesting when the voice of the
student is particularly prominent. Here, the real benefits
of the scheme become apparent. For example, one student
commented:
‘The project has given me a far greater appreciation
for [research]...the level of commitment required to
perform research of this nature is not something to be
underestimated; although the subject matter itself is
fascinating, the actual physical act of organising this
and, presumably, comparable bodies of work into useable
information is quite a formidable...undertaking. My
participation in the project and its successful completion
should prove a valuable asset to me in the future when
applying either for research positions or employment;
it shall confirm to potential research supervisors or
employers that I have the ability to perform a respectable
level of sustained, conscientious, and accurate work.’
Case studies
University of Worcester
Another student provided a similar perspective:
‘Working as a research assistant has been a brilliant
educational experience. From day one I was thrown
into the workings of the...project, being involved in data
collection, entry and analysis. It has really opened my eyes
to how research in the real world is carried out and the
extent of hard work that is put in by research assistants,
not all of which is glamorous! I was specifically involved in
writing a paper on the attitudes and knowledge of children
towards healthy eating, for which I had to conduct a
complex statistical test which I was unfamiliar with. The
support system in place for me as I was working in this
post was exceptional however, and there was never a time
when I was turned away without help and advice being
offered when needed. This role has given me invaluable
experience of working in a research setting... .I enjoyed
working in an environment where I was academically
challenged and felt that my knowledge and abilities were
appreciated. I think this experience will greatly benefit
my future career as it provided a platform for me to utilise
the skills I possess within the psychological field, and
has given me the opportunity to gain so many more. This
assistantship shows future employers of my interest and
ambition in this area which was not possible from my
previous employment history or experience to date.’
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Future of the scheme
The uniformly positive feedback on the scheme in 2011
ensured that it would run again in 2012 and, at the time of
writing, seven vacation research assistantships were being
advertised to students. The scheme, however, is deserving
of a more thorough analysis of its impact beyond that
offered by the end of project reports. It is therefore intended
to undertake follow up interviews with the 2011 cohort of
vacation research assistants to explore how being involved
with the scheme may have impacted on their subsequent
learning experience – for example, whether the knowledge
and skills developed during the research assistantship has
benefitted them in their subsequent study - and on their
career trajectory.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
121
Case studies
A new relationship between research and the teaching
of wildlife rehabilitation
Moira Harris, Harper Adams University College
I have been leading a module on Wildlife Care for second
year Animals and Vet Nursing students for about five
years. The module focuses on wildlife rehabilitation,
from the rescue of sick or injured wild animals through
to their handling and transport to wildlife hospitals or
rescue centres, their nursing care, rehabilitation and
release back into the wild. We examine the animal welfare,
ethical, legal, ecological and conservation contexts of the
process as well as its practicalities and constraints, and
the organisations and charities that provide care. Unlike
many areas of animals teaching, the science of wildlife
rehabilitation is quite new and very few peer-reviewed
scientific articles report the outcome of studies in this
subject. Thus, my teaching materials for the module have
relied heavily on a small handful of relevant textbooks,
supplemented by non peer-reviewed information, mostly
online (e.g. websites of individual wildlife hospitals).
Collaboration and student-led research
As part of his FdSc degree in Animal Management and
Welfare, in 2008 a Harper Adams student, Chris Halstead,
spent 10 weeks working for the RSPCA at Stapeley Grange
Wildlife Centre in Cheshire. While he was there he became
interested in the rehabilitation process of a commonly
admitted species, the woodpigeon (Columba palumbus),
and the factors that might affect the likelihood of casualty
birds admitted to the centre eventually being suitable for
release back into the wild. A maximum of 30% of admitted
woodpigeons are released, the rest being euthanased or
dying in captivity, which means that large amounts of
time and resources are devoted to the care of birds that
subsequently do not survive. It is essential therefore for
wildlife carers to identify those individuals with a poor
prognosis as soon as possible and take action to prevent
further suffering, in order to maximise their welfare.
The following year Chris analysed some of the wildlife
centre’s data for his professional research project, jointly
supervised by Dr Andrew Kelly (then manager of Stapeley
Grange and now Head of Wildlife at the RSPCA) and I.
Chris’s project, ‘Patterns in admissions, diagnosis and
outcomes for wood pigeons admitted to an RSPCA wildlife
rehabilitation centre in the North-West of England’
examined reasons for admission and other characteristics
(including age, sex, body mass and severity of injury) for
woodpigeons and related these data to the likelihood of
these casualties being released back into the wild posttreatment. At the same time as he was carrying out his
study Chris was taking the Wildlife Care module, and
he subsequently graduated with an overall Merit in his
foundation degree.
Chris retained an interest in the subject of his final year
project and wanted to extend his research and analysis, Dr
Kelly viewed contributing to research on rehabilitation as
an important part of his role as wildlife centre manager
(the RSPCA prioritises the welfare of all animals and
promotes research into ways of maximising animal
welfare); and I was becoming increasingly aware of the
relative lack of published scientific information on the
subject and wanted to contribute to the field, both to help
the rehabilitation community and assist Harper Adams
students taking the module. Thus, we decided to extend the
scope of the study, and reviewed the reasons for admission
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
A woodpigeon
(Columba palumbus)
123
Case studies
Processing: Analogue/Digital Material Surfaces (imprecise with precise
tools): A collaborative student-staff workshop with international guests
Dan Robinson, Leeds College of Art
and outcomes for 2,653 woodpigeons taken to Stapeley
Grange over a five-year period (2005–2009). Our article,
‘Factors affecting the likelihood of release of injured and
orphaned woodpigeons (Columba palumbus)’, with Dr Kelly
as first author and Chris and I as co-authors appears in the
October 2011 issue of the scientific journal Animal Welfare.
Findings
Our main findings were that reasons for admission varied,
with the most common reason for adults and juveniles
being ‘injury (cause uncertain)’ and ‘orphan’, respectively.
Twenty-one percent of adults and 16% of juveniles had
been attacked by cats. Sixty-five percent of adults and
37% of juveniles were euthanased on admission or within
the first 48 hours to prevent further suffering. Only 14%
of adults and 31% of juveniles were released back into
the wild. The remainder were either euthanased or died
despite treatment more than 48 hours after admission.
Body condition on admission was not a good predictor of
the likelihood of release, but age, weight on admission and
severity of symptoms were significant factors. A reduction
in the median number of days in care for those birds
euthanased more than 48 hours after being admitted was
recorded for 2007 to 2009, possibly due to the introduction
of radiography for all birds on admission, as part of triage.
Additionally, leg-band recovery data for 15 birds revealed
post-release survival ranging from 21–2,545 days (median =
231 days) compared to 1–2,898 days (median = 295) for non
rehabilitated birds.
This work should aid rehabilitators in making informed
decisions about the animals they care for; we have
124
demonstrated that age, weight on admission and severity of
symptoms can be used to identify individual woodpigeons
that are unlikely to survive to the release stage, and we
recommend that all wildlife rehabilitators utilise the
factors tested here to better advise their admissions policy
and to allow them to improve the welfare of wildlife
casualties presented to them. Euthanasia at the earliest
possible opportunity is the preferred outcome for those
birds that are not likely to survive.
Conclusion
The science of wildlife rehabilitation is relatively new and
there are presently few peer-reviewed articles available
to inform teaching and learning. Thus, we have made an
important contribution to the amount of high quality
scientific information available as well as demonstrating a
successful collaboration between Harper Adams University
College and the RSPCA, based on the work of one of our
undergraduate students. Harper Adams students are
continuing to undertake successful work placements at
RSPCA wildlife centres, including Stapeley Grange and
West Hatch (in Somerset), and carry out research projects
involving wild animals; thus we expect in future to further
our collaboration with the RSPCA by publishing more
journal articles based on student research.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
International collaboration, creativity and
inter-discipline informed practice
The initial idea for the event came from an experience
I had co-teaching a workshop in Magdeburg Stendhal,
Germany with Prof. Steffi Hußlein and designer Rob
Laux, as part of the Group for International Design
Education (GIDE). GIDE is a network of seven European
design institutions (Milan, Mechelen, Dundee, Leeds,
Ljubljana, Lugano and Magdeburg) who, since 2003,
rotate annual hosting of face-to-face meetings and
collaborative student workshops. Research-led themes
are explored through presentations, site visits and
3D construction. The theme then continues for a year
underpinning final year student briefs in all seven
countries. Magdeburg’s workshop title was ‘Creativity
for local enterprise’. The 2011–12 theme, ‘Design in
Action’, was set by Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art
and Design (DJCAD) as part of University of Dundee’s
participation in AHRC Knowledge Exchange Hub
‘Design in Action’ with V&A at Dundee.
At GIDE Magdeburg 2011, over three frenetic days
in a vast hall with 200 hundred international students,
our small ‘Physical Computing’ group used ‘Processing’
and simple Arduino circuits to create an interactive
installation. Our group felt something like Heath
Robinson at NASA, as we grappled to attach computers
to a tangle of wires, switches, blue-tac and an array of
random objects (hammer, bottle, teabags). The outcome
was a tabletop set up, where objects were handled to
trigger sounds and animations projected from above.
It was an exciting place to meet Steffi and Rob. Their
passion about ‘opening up’ computers (literally and
metaphorically) and sharing their knowledge of how
to do this was inspiring. Rob showed me images of his
personal experiments (mis)using portable CNC routers
to scratch, grind and draw into the surface of sheet metal
and acrylic off-cuts. His imagery combined portraits,
125
Case studies
Processing: Analogue/Digital Material Surfaces
(imprecise with precise tools) was a student-staff
collaborative workshop and exhibition with guest
designers Prof. Steffi Hußlein (Magdeburg) and Rob
Laux (Berlin) held on 14–16 November 2011 at Leeds
College of Art (LCA). The workshop explored digital
and analogue methods of generating images and
manipulating materials for art and design. Participants
learned to create code using ‘Processing’ (open source
generative design software) to drive machinery such as
computer numerical control (CNC) routers and laser
machines. Student-staff collaboration and practical
experimentation were encouraged. Highlights included
the glee that filled the room when a computer began
drawing with sand and an unexpected dance by a video
camera strapped to a machine toolhead. Outcomes
were displayed in an exhibition and publication in the
BA (Hons.) Art & Design Interdisciplinary studios
as part of Leeds Digital Festival. This chapter offers
an account from the author’s perspective as organiser
and participant, reflecting on the creative potential of
collaborations, bridging art, design and technology,
drawing on the combined work of international students,
staff and practitioners
Top: Workshop day one.
Photo: Dan Robinson
Bottom left: Dusting plaster on
sand poured by CNC router.
Photo: Katie Broadley
Bottom right: Rob Laux (right)
and Matthew Parks. Photo:
Dan Robinson
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Background and context
The aim of the ‘Processing’ workshop was to create a
dynamic collaborative learning event where students,
lecturers, tutor-technicians and international guests
could experiment and share knowledge. We wanted to
develop participants’ understanding of experimentation,
collaboration and new technology as vehicles for
innovation in art and design. The idea was to facilitate
greater understanding of the potential of working together
across different disciplines through digital and analogue,
3D machine technologies and generative design with a
range of materials. We wanted to question the qualities of
analogue and digital techniques by marrying the precision
of computer-control with the imprecision of hands-on
making, mess and mistakes. By inviting participants
with a range of expertise and institutional roles the
workshop aimed to be inclusive and self-sufficient, with all
participants supporting each other’s learning.
The 16 workshop participants were eight final year
students and four tutors from the BA (Hons.) Art & Design
Interdisciplinary programme, and four tutor-technicians
from the 3D workshop and digital resource areas. The
students responded to an open ‘call for participants’.
The workshop was facilitated by Steffi Hußlein, Rob
Laux, Cheryl Huntbach and me and was funded by the
programme area, staff development and Erasmus Staff
Mobility funds.
When setting up the workshop as a collaboration
between different individuals and institutions I was
helped by my previous experiences as an artist, teacher
and doctoral student. I’ve worked with site-specificity,
interdisciplinarity, dialogue and the art institution
(Esche, 2009; Rogoff, 2007; Kwon, 2004). A previous
collaborative project, ‘Interview – between the art
academy and society’ for Situation Leeds (Robinson,
2005), gave me a lot of confidence because we had such a
positive impact helping facilitate working relationships
that were sustained after the event.
The BA (Hons.) Art & Design Interdisciplinary
programme at LCA aims to develop students as flexible
practitioners able to respond creatively within a range
of situations. Our studio-based course has a strong
emphasis on collaborative projects and use of the
excellent workshop resources at Leeds. This allows the
development of hands-on making skills, object-making
and materials innovation.
The 3-day workshop took place 8 weeks into the final
year of the degree, in the ‘Professional Practice’ module
which enables students to research, develop and present
their individual practice direction. We wanted to be a
catalyst for studio and workshop activity with the theme
‘Creativity for local enterprise’.
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Case studies
technical drawings and complex abstract linear waveforms.
I was struck by the potential impact of these processes for
work at LCA. I also saw a connection between Rob’s use of
code and machines to draw on the surface of materials, and
with my colleague Cheryl Huntbach’s drawing with simple
hand tools to prick paper. Erasmus funds are available for
staff exchanges so we started discussing workshop ideas for
Leeds, at first during a student visit to Berlin and following
up via email and Skype.
Top: These three images show
how the sketch we looked at today
changes a source image via input
from a mouse. The sketch creates
circles based on the tonality of the
Viewing etched acrylic
drawing samples produced
on the CNC by Rob Laux.
Photo: Dan Robinson
image and the mouse position, and
then these circles can be machined
into a surface using a drill bit in a
CNC router. Images and blog post:
James Smart
Prior student learning relevant to the ‘Processing’
workshop includes a level four brief, ‘Digital surfaces’.
During this brief students are taught ‘Photoshop’ and
‘Illustrator’ software in conjunction with 3D material
processes such as photo-etching, routing or transfer
printing on metals, plastics, wood and ceramics.
The result was a student-staff, international, practiceresearch, hands on, interdisciplinary, material-surface,
precise and imprecise workshop during which we learned
to write computer code from scratch using ‘Processing’ in
order to create drawings with a range of material surfaces.
Cheryl Huntbach said, ‘It was an intense, challenging and
rewarding three days’ (Huntbach, 2011).
The workshop and exhibition
‘Processing is an open source programming environment
for people who want to create images, animations, and
interactions. With the coding based system data in many
formats can be imported, manipulated, and exported.
The potential of the software environment of Processing
combined with the CNC or photo-etched process of
“tooling” (milling, drilling, shaping and sketching)
opens new challenges for designers. The Processing
based sketches becomes tactile with material properties’
(Hußlein, 2011).
Before the workshop participants shared research and
imagery with a project blog. This meant ideas were already
bubbling before we met. Day one began with introductions
and presentations of recent interaction design, imagery
128
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
129
Case studies
Bottom: Using Processing to
interpret photographic source
images to produce machine
readable code. Images: Thomas
Knapp
Rob’s portable CNC building up
an image with an inked sponge.
Photos: Rob Laux
generated with Processing, early computer art (Darrel
Viner) and a range of drawing practices (DJ Simpson, Sol
Lewit, Sian Bowen, Tara Donovan, Anne Wilson). After
lunch we got down to learning Processing and G-code,
the programming language to control a CNC router. A
router is a tool used to engrave lines or hollow out areas in
the face of sheet materials, and is commonly used in CNC
machines. When tasks required small group work, we made
sure the groups included academic staff, technical staff
and students.
Day two involved learning more code and experimenting
with increasingly complex shapes and commands. At
various moments a great sense of achievement was felt
by individuals who managed to make a dot, draw a line
or create a circle. For most of us, the use of a new coding
language to make a machine draw was entirely new and the
sense of achievement was palpable. It was also inspiring
to witness students who perceived themselves as ‘nontechnical’ assisting staff to understand computer code:
‘Why should artists use CNC machinery, code and
programming? Coding is new to virtually all the
participants who have no experience in developing
complex scripts to feed the computer. So in programming
terms the results are very basic and the challenge is to
develop an artistic standpoint. Manual control of a tool
is much more direct. So for everybody it felt like drawing
a picture without using their hands, guiding the brush
only by giving spoken commands. After getting over this
frustration the workshop showed what could be achieved
even with limited abilities’ (Laux, 2011).
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
The intense concentration required also led to some
unpredicted responses. Contextual studies lecturer Joanna
Geldard reconfigured snippets of Processing code into a
poem. This is an extract:
When traversing at a rapid notion of F600
leaves a rendered circle ellipse
In the left brained clockwise motion
M02 end programme
A smooth ramp 0.3 mm
See my ramp at 0.1 mm
At an inch, my data is out of joint
This sidestep, coupled with an earlier proposition by
student Patrick Kirk-Smith to design a code to reconfigure
the lyrics to Barry Manilow’s ‘I Write The Songs’ set a new
course, for a small group of us, who decided on day three
to focus on manipulating text. Experiment and play were
encouraged and generated great results.
Day three began with establishing four groups, each
made up of students, academic and technical staff. Groups
were formed around different interests of individuals
in response to the workshop so far, with the following
working titles:
• The process of image making
• Text, code, language & boundaries
• Interference & light
• Abstraction, pattern & interruption
131
Now participants could focus on putting their new coding
knowledge into practice. Day three was very experimental
and fast-paced. Student Adam Cluley attached his video
camera to the CNC tool-head. The outcome was an
unexpected three minute video capturing a kind of dance –
we see a tool-eye-view of the machine, milling and spitting
sawdust as it skates and pirouettes across the surface of a
piece of shuttering plywood:
‘…a Kinect videogame input device might be directly
connected to a numerically controlled drill. Why would
anyone ‘mash’ a videogame controller onto an industrial
construction tool? Because it’s cheap and easy to do –
that’s why. Because that feat attracts admiration. Because
this ungainly hybrid might become a ‘platform’ for
creating something else…’ (Sterling, 2011).
The two days following the workshop were also significant.
The students involved worked with tutors to curate and
install outcomes from the workshop within our exhibition
space. We used pages of our publication to tell the workshop narrative as a wall display. The blog was printed on a
15-metre long piece of paper and hung through a gap in the
ceiling tiles, appearing to fall and flow across the floor.
Our workshop table was reconstructed as a plinth
to display tools, material tests, animations and two
particularly inventive CNC experiments: a drawing relief
made by Roger Berry strapping an improvised sand
dispenser to the CNC machine head and a table-top video
projection retracing the path danced by the CNC machine.
Case studies
Top left: Portrait of Matthew using
Processing code to vary the
pressure of a 3 mm drill bit in MDF.
Photo: Steffi Hußlein
Top right: Drilling mirrored acrylic.
Photo: Elisa Heikkila
Bottom left: Comparing individual
aims for day three. Photo: Patrick
Kirk-Smith
Bottom right: Using the CNC
machine at LCA. Photo: Patrick
Kirk-Smith
Reflection: Managing student-staff collaborations
As an approach to teaching and learning, I believe our
workshop shows that student-staff collaboration in
learning new skills and producing and exhibiting work
can enable more complex learning to take place, than
the sometimes more hierarchical tutorial, lecture and
crit scenarios. Benefits included a more meaningful
possibility of research-led teaching and teaching through
example. Students witness the tutor-practitioner solving
problems, making mistakes. Student Elisa Heikkila
described working alongside tutors as ‘an important
experience, being able to work alongside and witness
the decision making processes of professional artists
and designers’ (Heikkila, 2011). This is not to propose
‘non-hierarchical’ as a straightforward concept. Far
from it, lack of structure and formality may reinforce
latent hierarchies; individuals may dominate or coerce
each other through ‘collaboration’. I use the term nonhierarchical with caution as a means to investigate
collaborative approaches to student-staff learning.
Reflecting on the workshop a week later, student
Adam Cluley commented, ‘They [Steffi and Rob] were
excited about how this new technology meant we could
work without technicians, instructors, and machine
operators, but I kept thinking, does that mean they’re all
out of a job?’ Writing later in our course journal, Inter Xy
– the quarterly journal, edited and produced by students
on the BA (Hons.) Art & Design Interdisciplinary
programme at Leeds College of Art, which emerged
from practice-writing workshops delivered jointly
by critical studies and studio staff – Adam references
Charlie Chaplin’s film ‘Modern Times’ as a critique of
technology-worship, ‘The monotonous and relentless
task of tightening bolts, and an undignified encounter
with a feeding machine, leads to Chaplin going rogue
and upsetting the careful balance of the factory’
(Cluley, 2011).
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Case studies
Imprecise with precise tools
This theme was integral to the workshop ethos. The
subtitle, ‘imprecise with precise tools’, was suggested
by Steffi and Rob. It hints at a useful tension between
digital and analogue, machine and human, computercontrolled plot versus the hand-made mark. There is a
wider implication that chance, mistakes, mess and handson making are essential in the post-digital age. In the
weeks before the workshop in a seminar on that year’s
GIDE theme ‘creativity for local enterprise’ we considered
Thomas Heatherwick’s Extrusions (2009). Heatherwick’s
seats are made from a single misshapen piece of extruded
aluminium and seem to rely on the possibility of accident,
failure and a necessary level of trust between mechanised
industry and the creative practitioner. Digital-analogue
debates were also played out in the recent show, Power
of Making at the V&A, guest-curated by Daniel Charny
and subtitled, ‘the importance of being skilled’. In his
essay for the accompanying publication, Professor Sir
Christopher Frayling writes ‘some educationalists have
argued about schoolwork that the 3Rs should really be
‘reading, wroughting, rithmatic’ (Frayling, 2011). Perhaps
our workshop suggests wroughting may better be replaced
with routing.
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Top: Exhibition view – shows blogprint falling from the ceiling.
Bottom: Exhibition view – monitor
shows interactive animation
created in Processing to mimic ant
movement. Photos: Adam Cluley
134
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
The week prior to the workshop I had attended a oneday drawing symposium hosted by the LCA Foundation
Diploma in Art & Design. In his presentation, Professor
Juan Cruz (Liverpool John Moores University) discussed
teaching art ‘in-the-present’. His talk proposed that most
art teaching is either about work that was made earlier,
as in a crit scenario, or work that is yet-to-be-made,
the proposed idea. He reflected on rare moments when
teaching occurs during the actual process of making art
and presented the life-drawing class as an example of this.
He described the usefulness of the final drawing being
disposable and the focus being on the process of drawing
itself. ‘The tutor can discuss the work while it is being
made, they may physically intervene with a mark here,
something rubbed out there’ (Cruz, 2011).
Cruz’s idea returned to me during our workshop. In our
shifting roles as learners and teachers we were all making
work and discussing it in the present. Each of us took in
information, responded and made decisions alongside each
other. Although our workshop may seem very distant from
the life-room we were co-producing drawing and learning,
in the present tense.
Most participants were less concerned with the whole
agenda (internationalism, collaboration, digital-analogue,
generative design, drawing, precise-imprecise qualities,
interdisciplinarity, research-led teaching) but focused
on individual interests and directions. All participants
struggled at different points. It was therefore important
to manage expectations, for example by reiterating the
experimental nature of the workshop, the possibility that
individual work could continue beyond the workshop and
the shared student-staff dynamic. As students and tutors,
the shared task of representing our workshop in a public
exhibition within two days gave focus, supported critical
decision-making and facilitated learning about curatorial
and installation strategies. Lecturer Joanna Geldard
commented:
135
Case studies
‘Timing the event at the beginning of year and exhibiting
the results within the studio space gave a real boost and
has allowed time for responses to unfold over the academic
year. It also helped shape peer-group clusters which
have enabled students to develop deeper awareness of
individual themes and ideas’ (Geldard, 2011).
The project blog was projected and discussed on a daily
basis within the workshop and this helped us to discuss
and reflect on work in progress. This helped facilitate the
design of a publication produced at LCA using digital and
screen printing.
The blog was also useful when it came to negotiating
small interest groups at the start of day three, enabling
a participant-led day of experiment to produce such
surprising results. The way these groups collaborated
around shared themes to produce work has been emulated
in our staff practice-research development. Tutor-technician Thomas Knapp said ‘it really inspired me and got
me thinking about my own practice again’ (Knapp, 2011).
Co-leading a workshop with staff from a different
country and discipline was a fantastic experience. The
opportunity to meet, in an atmosphere conducive to
indentifying a potential collaboration, was entirely
made possible by LCA and Magdeburg’s membership
of the Group for International Design Education
(GIDE). Steffi and Rob, both from industrial design
backgrounds, both commented that they would take the
open experimentation and collaborative dynamic back
to Magdeburg:
‘Within the art world today, the discursive formats of
the extended library-cum-seminar-cum-workshopcum-symposium-cum-exhibition have become preeminent modes of address and forms of knowledge
production’ (Holert, 2009).
The format ‘workshop’, as learning-event, has rich
potential. Multiple agendas unfold in a contained
time and space whilst participants can encounter
the whole as a singular experience. The reality of an
event is complex. Agendas overlap and shift across
the multiple viewpoints of participants. Moreover, the
nature of ‘participation’ itself (Bishop, 2004; Doherty,
2009) has been widely debated in art education this last
decade. On reflection, there was perhaps more scope
for our workshop to involve students in the planning
stages. There is also further potential to develop
collaboration with industry in order to innovate with
new technologies. The GIDE group and other external
partners at LCA offer good opportunities to develop
these areas.
The 16 participants have continued to meet to share
individual practice-research and to discuss ideas for
developing 3D workshop methods, hardware, software
136
and plans for future events. A subsequent workshop was
organised by my colleague Cheryl Huntbach with GIDE
guests from Belgium helping students to flock their
possessions. (‘Flock’ is small fiber particles, as in flocked
wallpaper.) Four months after the ‘Processing’ workshop,
students and staff are continuing to experiment with
computer controlled machinery. There has been a series of
student-led initiatives including lively discussions, external
exhibitions and a course journal devoted to ‘digitalanalogue’. These outcomes are together being captured in
a year book, jointly edited by students and staff. I learnt
a great deal through the experience of this workshop
and felt proud when it was used in a recent LCA research
strategy discussion as an example of how practice-research,
internationalism and student-staff collaboration can help
students on their journeys through art and design.
Processing, publication with
screen-printed cover designed
by third year BA (Hons.) Graphics
student Arthur Carey. Photo:
Arthur Carey
Workshop blog:
www.imprecise-precise.blogspot.com
This chapter is based on an article originally written
for Networks.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
137
Case studies
The High Wycombe electronic Furniture Archive
Jake Kaner and Sharon Grover, Buckinghamshire New University
Further reading
Bishop, C. (2009) Participation, Cambridge MA, The MIT Press.
Cluley, A. (2011) ‘Digilogue’, Inter Xy, 2, Leeds College of Art, p. 8.
Cluley, A. (2011) ‘Life inside the machine’ (YouTube video),
www.imprecise-precise.blogspot.com/2011/11/life-inside-machine
html. Date accessed 04/01/12.
Cruz, J. (2011) Speaking at Foundation Course Drawing
Symposium, Leeds College of Art, 11/11/11.
Doherty, C. (2004) Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation,
London, Black Dog Publishing.
Esche, C., (2009) ‘Include me out: Helping artists to undo the
art world’ in S. Madoff (Ed.), Art School: Propositions for the 21st
Century (pp. 101–112), Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press.
Frayling, C. (2011) ‘We must all turn to the crafts’ in D. Charney
(Ed.), Power of Making: The Case for Making and Skills, London,
V&A Publishing.
Geldard, J., Heikkila, E., Huntbach, C. and Knapp, T. (2011)
Evaluation meeting, Leeds College of Art, 14/12/11.
Heatherwick, T. (2009) ‘Extrusions’, www.heatherwick.com
extrusions. Date accessed 04/01/12.
Hußlein, S. (2011) ‘Discussion notes’, Personal email
communication, 18/11/11.
Holert, T. (2009) ‘Art in the Knowledge-based Polis’ quoted in
Lesage, D. (2009) The Academy is Back: on Education, the Bologna
Process, and the Doctorate in the Arts, http://e-flux.com/journal
view/45. Date accessed 03/09.
Kwon, M. (2004) One place after another: site-specific art and
locational identity, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press.
Laux, R. (2011) ‘Discussion notes’, Personal email communication,
18/11/11.
Manilow, B. (1975) ‘I Write the Songs’ [Song] Written by
Johnston, B. 1975.
Robinson, D. (2005) ‘Interview – between the art academy and
society’ in Situation Leeds (2005) Leeds, Vitrine Publishing.
Robinson, D. (2009) The Noise of Fiction, Site, Score, Document,
PhD thesis submitted to the University of Leeds.
Rogoff, I. (2007) ‘Academy as Potentiality’ in I. Nollert et al (Eds.),
A.C.A.D.E.M.Y, Frankfurt, Revolver.
Savage, G. (2011) ‘How Can the Group for International Design
Education Remain Part of a Sustainable Future?’ in Session Four,
Interior Futures ’11 conference, University of Northumbria, 3–4
March 2011, www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/scd/whatson
news/listen/interior_futures. Date accessed 04/01/12.
Sterling, B. (2011) ‘The Future of Making’ in D. Charney (Ed.),
Power of Making, London, V&A Publishing.
Viner, D. (2011) ‘Early Work’, Exhibition at Henry Moore Institute,
Sculpture Study Galleries, 27th July – 30th October 2011,
www.henry-moore.org/hmi/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/2011
darrell-viner-early-work. Date accessed 04/01/12.
138
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
In 2005 we organised a project to unify, catalogue and
digitise in order to disseminate as an online research
resource, a range of disparate material representing
major furniture manufacturing firms in High Wycombe
(a major furniture manufacturing centre throughout the
20th century). Guidance was taken from both national
university collections and the international archive
sector. This resulted in a robust research provision,
which has been exploited as an informative repository
for those seeking reference and guidance into twentieth
century furniture.
Digitisation and research
The first stage, ‘the creation of the High Wycombe
electronic Furniture Archive’ was completed in
November 2009 (funded by the AHRC, £301k), having
digitised some 16,000 analogue assets. The launch
witnessed the opening of the portal to the electronic
database through the interactive website, supported by
a three month exhibition of the analogue collection held
in the High Wycombe public library. By January 2012 it
had received three million hits validating its position as
an important national research resource.
This study has employed qualitative research being
conducted through interviews and focus groups coming
from the manufacturing industry and related agencies
(trade unions), including research centres such as the
Furniture Industry Research Association. A large
amount of unique findings have been applied to the
electronic database through enhanced metadata.
139
The considerable amount of ‘research material’ collated
throughout the course of the project has been used in
data sets supporting the images on the database and
website. Research findings are being prepared for article
submissions categorised into three themes: furniture
manufacturing forecasting, World War II activities
(modifications to factories for aircraft, munitions and
the utility scheme) and women at work – there are many
images relating to women at work in the Ercol collection
and numerous references through the Union Records, such
as ‘women dilutees’ alluding to those who were retrained
and employed during the Second World War.
Engagement: Building up the collection
Throughout the project engagement with the industry and
other collections of twentieth century furniture archival
material evoked a move from being a regional to becoming
a national resource. Hence a proposal was developed to
enhance the existing electronic database and website
by increasing its content to national status as offers of
donations increased from furniture collections, such as
Stag furniture (Nottingham), Frederick Parker collection
(London Metropolitan University), Furniture Industry
Research Association (FIRA-Stevenage) amongst others.
National collections have formally expressed interest in
participating with the longer term project, representing
public and private archives: the Geffrye Museum;
Birmingham Furniture Archives (Birmingham City
University); Salford Trade Union Archives (University of
Salford); and Hille Furniture Ltd, with others informally
showing enthusiasm for inclusion in the project.
Case studies
Fig 1: Print of Ib Kofod-Larsen
drawing no. 15 dated June 1961,
showing occasional chair (6245)
with loose cushions for GPlan.
Vic Wilkins (VBW) appears to
have initially written Arm of chair
being made in Denmark, then
subsequently crossed this out and
added, Have asked for whole chair
to be made in Denmark & similar
design for High Back to be made
by us when drawing received.
The audience for this project is constantly expanding with
further dissemination and search optimisation. The core
of users has already gone beyond the normal academic
segmentation of formal learners, independent learners
and leisure users as the content rich archive offers valuable
primary material to the furniture industry, the design
sector and artefact collectors/valuers.
A special furniture archive conference was convened
at the V&A museum in 2006 hosted by the twentieth
century furniture research group where papers discussed
issues around terminology for search terms and archiving
processes and preservation. A rigorous discussion took
place at the plenary session illustrating the need for a
sector standard for the use of furniture nomenclature for
special furniture collections. The HWeFA project took
this as a key initiative, and devised a set of standard terms
for use in its electronic database, which has proven to be
universally accepted.
In 2007 the project team were able to share research
experiences and recommend best practice following sector
Fig 2: Ercol: Arden suite dated
c. 1974 showing Easy Chair (697),
3 Seater Settee (697/3).
140
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
141
Case studies
Fig 3: G-Plan 1962 catalogue.
Colour picture showing G-Plan
bedroom furniture – headboard
(1592), wardrobe (1090), cupboard
chest (1706), dressing table (1920),
chair (6031), dressing stool (6040).
standards for digital outputs that follow ‘open source’
(JISC) policies including ‘creative commons’.
In 2008 the Furniture Trades Benevolent Association
entrusted its fragile minute books to the HWeFA for
safekeeping and digitisation of this informative material.
A short publication was completed outlining the purpose
of digitisation and how this would disseminate this
valuable social and economic history collection.
Currently the unique cost books of William Birch are
being digitised capturing highly informative and visual
accounts of twentieth century furniture design and
making practices. Birch produced significant arts and
crafts ranges for Liberty’s, Heals and Harrods.
Design heritage and embedded learning
The HWeFA has been embedded into the University
curriculum with a dedicated module being validated as
part of an undergraduate furniture programme within the
National School of Furniture. The resource is further used
by both undergraduate and postgraduate students for a
variety of purposes, including reference, primary resource
and as inspiration for design innovation. Lecturers and
researchers use the resource for historic reference as well
as inspiration for new designs.
This informative database has provided collectors,
dealers and auctioneers with a reliable source for
historical evidence of twentieth century furniture as has
been demonstrated through engagement with this sector.
The resource’s provision to the industry is already
established through its links with the Bucks Furniture
Industry Board and furniture Companies such as
142
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
143
Ercol who frequently reference the reliable content
particularly with the recent re-issue of furniture models
such as the 1950s butterfly chair and the Windsor range.
With the increase in activities through the stakeholders
this is growing.
The project outputs provide new material for the
teaching of design and design history for use within
the university’s art and design programmes along with
other HE/FE institutions’ teaching activities. A further
module has been recently validated on a foundation
degree programme at the NSF based upon the HWeFA.
The material is also of high value to researchers
engaging with this type of material within art and
design contexts. Many researchers have visited the
physical archive and citations are increasing.
Sustainability issues acknowledged by JISC
identified five areas that ensure long-term success of
digitisation projects in Universities. This project has
managed to address all of these areas as the facility is
now embedded into the University resource and culture,
is dynamic, has a strong value contribution, creatively
manages costs with diverse sources of revenue and
has clear targets with measurable metrics. Since its
creation the HWeFA has enjoyed an average of over
100,000 hits per month and continues to evolve its
expanding audience.
Case studies
Research and teaching:
An investigation of student teachers’ ability to reflect
Melissa Mantle, University of Chichester
Further reading
Grover, S. (2008) Changes in the High Wycombe furniture industry,
The Sixth Conference of the 20th Century Furniture Research
Group: Brit. Design 1900–2000, 21 November 2008, High
Wycombe.
Kaner, J. (2011) The use of electronic tools for three-dimensional
visualisation of furniture at Future Talks 11, Pinakotek der
Moderne, Munich.
Kaner, J. (2010) Preserving lost histories: people making
furniture in the twentieth century at the ‘Consortium for
Research Excellence Support and Training’ symposium,
University of London.
Kaner, J. (2010) The High Wycombe Electronic Furniture Archive
in ‘Designer magazine’ See www.thedesignermagazine.com.
Kaner, J. (2009) FTBA hopes for historic save in ‘Furnishing
Life’ newsletter for the FTBA Spring 2009, entitled. Discussed
the HWEFA and the Minute books donated to the HWFA by the
FTBA.
Kaner, J. (2009) University creates furniture industry archive in
‘House Magazine’ No. 1317 Vol. 34.
Kaner, J (2009) Preserving the history of the furniture industry:
saving images and text through the High Wycombe Electronic
Furniture Archive, Wycombe Arts Festival.
Kaner, J.(2009) Creation of High Wycombe Furniture Archive, Arts
humanities.net, JISC, AHRC, Kings College, Feb 2008.
Kaner, J. (2008) The High Wycombe Electronic Furniture Archive,
Design Research Seminar, London Metropolitan University (Sir
John Cass School of Art Design and Media), 27 February 2008.
Kaner, J. (2008) The GPlan Revolution: A Celebration of British
popular Furniture of the 1950s and 1960s, Foreword, Booth
Clibborn, London.
Kaner, J. (2008) Innovation in furniture design and manufacture
at the sixth Twentieth Century Furniture Research Group
conference, held at the Oak Room in High Wycombe town hall.
144
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
As Coultas (2008) states: ‘An effective teacher is a learner’
and in order to formalise learning an individual should
reflect upon their experience. The concept of becoming
a reflective practitioner in teaching is not new but the
pressures of a condensed Post Graduate Certificate of
Education training (PGCE) year often make it difficult
to include sufficient periods of reflection to formalise
learning within the programme (Donald, 2002). This
chapter focuses on research which evaluated the impact
and perceived effectiveness of reflective learning activities
on PGCE Physical Education (PE) students.
This action research project took place within an Initial
Teacher Training (ITT) programme at the University
of Chichester and served two purposes. Firstly, data
gained from a previous study provided a starting point
for the investigation, which subsequently stimulated the
introduction of a range of reflective learning activities in
the PGCE training year. Secondly this current project has
created ‘theories of understanding’ which could be used to
influence the thoughts of others. In other words both the
‘action’ and the ‘research’ have created a transformation in
the mechanics of the PGCE course within one institution,
brought about as a result of the increased confidence
and belief in the data, supporting the introduction of
alternative activities to encourage reflective learning
(McNiff & Whitehead, 2010).
Action research is a powerful tool for change (Cohen
et al, 2009) and was used to improve the learning
opportunities for the PGCE students. Carr and Kemmis
(1986) regard action research as a self-reflective enquiry
and emphasise the importance of the two aims of action
research: to improve and to involve. Atwo themed
approach. Rossi and Tan (2012) however provide a more
progressive theory to action research when they write
of ‘a reflective process involving progressive problem
solving’. This research is on-going and in truth will never
be complete because each conclusion drawn will assist
in the design of the next PGCE training year. The study
followed an interpretative paradigm but adopted the
theory presented by Pawson and Tilley (1997) to provide
the project with a ‘bounded system’ (Gomm et al, 1993).
The Pawson and Tilley model had three elements to the
research process:
145
Case studies
‘Context ------ Mechanism ------ Outcome’
(Pawson and Tilley, 1997)
The project is based on the three elements as follows:
• The context was be variable. There were a variety of
reflective learning activities and a research tool to
investigate student reflection.
• The mechanism on the whole remained constant because
the contexts were designed to provoke the students’
thought processes. Hence the mechanism was the
students’ thoughts.
• The outcome was the student reflection. The assumptions
were that the participants take part in several contexts,
the mechanism remains constant but might be through
various media and eventually the desired outcome of
reflection was achieved.
communal forms of reflection in both the written and oral
form. The research was carried out over a twelve month
training period which equated to the PGCE year.
The research questions which were the focus of this
study were as follows:
Reflection as a learning strategy
The most important concern for ITT and school-based
staff is not necessarily how we formalise the learning
from our reflection, but to make sure there is opportunity to ‘learn’ to reflect. The evaluation of a lesson with
a mentor is only one step towards a critical review of the
developing teacher or person (Moon, 2005).
Donald (2002) compared the novice to expert teacher
and questioned whether the one year PGCE course could
prepare a student to adapt quickly to classroom feedback
and reflect on their teaching experience. Many PGCE
students will rapidly learn to respond to the demands of
their mentor or other external source primarily because
little time is given to internal analysis or thoughts. The
PGCE student will experience an intense learning curve
and a process of ‘trial and error’ (Lovell, 1982), and in
some cases students may withdraw because there is too
much emphasis on reflection, which could result in a fear
of failure (Ghaye and Ghaye, 1998).
Reflection is regarded as a form of experiential
learning and a way to formalise learning rather than
cognitive acquisition. Evaluation of lessons taught and a
reflection on personal learning is an essential quality in
any effective teacher. Dewey (1955), Kolb (1984), Schön
(1991) and Honey and Mumford (2006) have identified
forms of learning relating to a step or phase system
to a cyclical process of development. Dewey lists five
stages of development: suggestion, problem solving,
hypothesis, reasoning and testing, which have been
used as a base line assessment of student development
in this research.
All theories of reflection appear to suggest reflection is
stimulated by a need or desire to solve a problem (Parson
& Stephenson, 2005; Loughran, 1996) with the process
being more important than the impact of any change.
It is essential that the student moves from evaluating
an event to reflecting on the reason ‘why’ (Parsons &
Stephenson, 2005). Dewey defined reflection to be a
person’s ability to integrate new knowledge, feelings or
attitudes with previous knowledge and to be a prerequisite
for professional growth (Peters, 1977). If a student cannot
reflect on the lesson, the evaluation is reduced to mere
impulse (Redmond, 2004). Student teachers however, have
little teaching experience on which to reflect and can be
totally overwhelmed by the requirements of the profession,
especially during the early stages.
Initial reflection from students is often descriptive,
but more detailed reflection that considers ‘other’ factors
has been labelled in this project as ‘enhanced’ reflection.
Reflection is an internal thought process but Bradbury
et al (2010) stipulate that there is a need to recognise
the context, power dynamics or ideological challenges
from this process. These factors were labelled ‘enhanced’
reflection. According to Moon (2008) enhanced reflection
provides a 3-D effect with the individual viewing the
situation from the outside whereas descriptive reflection
merely outlines the events.
The Research Study
This research embraced the theories of Dewey (five stages
of development) and the suggestion made by Moon (2005)
and Ghaye and Ghaye (1998) to introduce individual and
Thirteen student teachers were asked to take part in the
research at the beginning of the project. Towards the end
of the project, once the content of the data were analysed,
six participants, demonstrating a range of approaches to
reflection, were chosen to take part in a formal interview.
The six participants (3 male; 3 female students) were
all studying secondary Physical Education on a PGCE
course at the same institution. The participants were aged
between 22–24 and all of them eventually graduated with
Qualified Teacher Status.
All were given the opportunity to withdraw from the
project at any time. All data were confidential with student
names being removed and a coding system adopted.
Three complementary reflective learning activities
were chosen to investigate the development of the students’
ability to reflect. These were: discussion groups, action
learning sets (ALS) and reflective journals. The activities
included individual, communal, oral and written forms of
reflection (Ghaye & Ghaye, 1998; Russell & Munby, 1992;
146
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
147
• Do student teachers demonstrate reflection through
Dewey’s stages of learning?
• Do students use narrative to reflect?
• How do reflective learning activities impact on student
teachers’ ability to reflect?
Morrison, 1996; Parsons & Stephenson, 2005; Moon, 2005).
The data collection concluded with a formal interview.
The aim of the oral reflective learning activities was
not to discover ‘what’ the students were thinking, but
more importantly how and why they came to that opinion
(Morgan, 1997). The groups were established during
University-based sessions and the topic was always
related to relevant issues of becoming a teacher and to
helping the students achieve the 2007 ‘Q’ standards.
The oral activities were informal, provided a relaxed
atmosphere and allowed ‘emic’ or natural information to
be presented (Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990). The aim of
the oral activities was to provide time and space for the
student to reflect (Brockbank & McGill, 2004) and for
the student to move away from being a ‘passive receiver
of knowledge’ to a reflective practitioner (Greenwood &
Levin, 2007). In addition to the oral activities a written
journal was provided to assist with any written reflection
that may occur during the year. At the conclusion of the
year six students were interviewed formally with questions
designed to probe the comments already ascertained.
Results and discussion
The data showed that five of the six students demonstrated
reflection through Dewey’s stages of learning and two of
the five did show the early signs of enhanced reflection,
but this was limited; these two students started to make
independent decisions (Fook, 2010). It could therefore be
concluded that opportunity alone does not ensure learning
from reflection. Reflection could be a learning tool that has
to be taught. The participants were tracked through their
Case studies
ability to ‘layer’ their reflection by relating more recent
learning to previous learning. This involved moving from
one experience to the next and being aware of how they
were learning from experience. Dewey’s stages of learning
were being ‘layered’ on top of each other rather forming
a distinct linear progression. This meant the learner did
not always return to a starting point but went through the
stages in a different order or had juxtaposed certain steps
or progressions.
The two students who showed signs of enhanced
reflection by demonstrating the ability to place their
learning within an historical continuum of learning
considered their relationship with others and how this
affected their own perceived status and had a positive
emotional attitude to their training.
The data produced an interesting consideration in that
each participant used a story to relive an experience from
their life. Although the use of narrative was not essential
to reflection, the opportunity to tell a story certainly
helped the participants to start the reflection process. All
participants told a story during the ALS and some used the
journal to provide a written narrative. Interestingly, Elbaz
(1990) argues the use of storytelling particularly suits the
profession of teaching, so it was no surprise to find each
reflective learning activity produced a series of narratives
from the students’ experience. The stories were told in
different ways. Some were straightforward descriptions,
other stories provided background detail.
Clandini (1988) stressed the ‘power’ of the narrative.
This was demonstrated in this research as each recorded
episode had relevance to the participant. This relevance
usually came from either a positive emotional experience or
occasionally a negative experience, which is interesting to
note because it may explain why an individual would tell a
story. In other words the participant selected the story for a
reason. However the content of the story differed between
the reflective learning activities. The discussion groups
produced accounts concerning whole school issues, while
ALS were more personal and introduced topics relating
to the individual and their personal experience. The oral
reflective activities were expressed in ‘real time’. There was
no transformation or time delay and the detail appeared to
be very ‘fresh’ in the students’ minds. The journal provided
a brief sequence of events that were based on a historical
overview of events.
148
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Conclusions
This research project provided several opportunities for
student teachers to reflect on their teaching and learning
experience. The reflective learning activities did not always
produce reflection. Although five of the six students did
show the early signs of reflecting through Dewey’s stages of
learning only two demonstrated reflection that considered
the context of their learning, ownership of the situation,
a reference to power and emotion. The conclusion would
therefore summarise that opportunity does not always
equal enhanced reflection. Some students will have to be
guided to consider and re-consider their experience in
order to formalise their own learning; to be encouraged or
perhaps ‘taught’ how to reflect and ultimately formalise
their learning utilising various narrative tools. This
project also has implications for pedagogical approaches
within Initial Teacher Training and should be used to
identify suitable teaching strategies to ensure student
teachers formalise their learning. This could raise the
question, supported by Donald (2002), that the PGCE
training year is too intense to allow space for considered,
enhanced reflection, and that the reflection process
should be initiated in the training year and continued
overtly in career professional development programmes
and, implicitly and explicitly, accessed throughout the
students’ teaching careers.
Finally, beyond the wider considerations for the
sector, the project has contributed to my own knowledge
and teaching practices. As a researcher and a lecturer in
ITT I have moved closer to understanding how student
teachers formalise their learning and how I can facilitate
this process.
149
Further reading
Bradbury, H. Frost, N. Kilminster, S. and Zukas, M. (Eds) (2010)
Beyond Reflective Practice. London; Routledge.
Brockbank, A. and McGill, I. (2004) The Action Learning
Handbook, Falmer: Routledge; 2004.
Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical: Education,
Knowledge and Action Research. London: Falmer Press.
Clandinin, D. and Connelly, F. (1988) in: Cortazzi, M. (1993)
Narrative Analysis. Social Research and Educational Studies Series.
London: Falmer Press.
Cohen, L. Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2009) Research Methods in
Education. Oxon, New York: Routledge.
Coultas, V. (2008) ‘Reflection and professional development: becoming
a creative teacher’, in Cole, M (Ed) Professional Attributes and
Practice. Meeting the QTS standards, Oxon: Routledge; pp. 143–156.
Dewey, J. (1933) How we think: A restatement of the relation of
reflective Thinking to the Educative process. Lexington Heath
and Co.
Dewey, J. (1955) Experience and Education. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
Donald, J. (2002) Learning to think – Disciplinary Persceptive. San
Francesco: Wiley.
Elbaz, F. (1990) Knowledge and discourse: The evolution of teachers’
thinking, in: Day, C. Pope, M, and Denicola, P (Eds) (1990) Insight
into teachers’ thinking and practice. Basingstoke: Falmer Press.
Fook, J. (2010) ‘reworking the ‘critical’ in critical reflection’ in
H.Bradbury, N.Frost, S.Kilminster and M.Zukas (Eds) (2010) Beyond
Reflective Practice, London: Routledge; pp. 37–51.
Ghaye, A. and Ghaye, K. (1998) Teaching and Learning through Critical
Reflective Practice. Oxon: Fulton Pub.
Greenwood, D. and Levin, M. (2007) Introduction to Action Research –
Social Research for Social Change. London: Sage pub.
Gomm, R. Hammersley, M and Foster, P. (2000) Case Study Method.
London: Sage publications.
Honey, P. and Mumford, A. (2006) The Learning Styles – Helpers
Guide. London: Peter Honey Pub.
Kolb, D. (1984) Experiential Learning. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Loughran, J. (1996) Developing Reflective Practice. London: Falmer.
Lovell, B. (1982) Adult Learning. London: Croom Helm.
McNiff, J and Whitehead, J. (2010) You and Your Action Research
Project. Oxon: Routledge.
Case studies
Embracing indeterminacy:
English Literature and research-led teaching
Paul Hardwick, Leeds Trinity University College
Langagis, whos reulis ben not writen, as ben Englisch, Freensch, and manye othere, ben chaunged
withynne yeeris and cuntrees, that oon man of
the oon cuntre, and of the oon tyme, mygte not,
or schulde not kunne undirstonde a man of the
othere kuntre, and of the othere tyme; and al for
this, that the seid langagis ben not stabili and
foundamentali writen.
Moon, J. (2005) Learning Journals. London: Routledge / Falmer.
Moon, J. (2008) Critical Thinking. An Exploration of Theory and
Practice. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
Morrison, K. (1996) Developing Reflective Practice in Higher degree
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number 21(3). pp. 317–332.
Parsons, M. and Stephenson,M. (2005) Developing Reflective
Practice. Teachers and Teaching:theory and practice. no 11(1) 95-116.
Pawson, R. and Tilley, N. (1997) Realistic Evaluation. London: Sage.
Peters, R. (1977) John Dewey Researched. London: Routledge.
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Schön, D. (1991) Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Oxon: Jossey
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150
I first came across these musings from the 15th-century
Bishop Reginald Pecock’s Book of Faith whilst undertaking
doctoral research on late medieval English vernacular
anticlericalism at the University of York. Pecock’s point
– essentially that the English language’s mutability
renders meaning unstable across time and place – is, of
course, self-evident in the initial difficulty a non-specialist
21st-century reader may have in reading the passage.
Furthermore, it may be seen to prefigure any number of
theoretical discussions of language of the past century. As
such – and for a number of other reasons, not least of which
is simple interest in Pecock’s life and career – these words
have become something of a personal touchstone in both
my teaching (on modules as diverse as medieval literature
and experimental writing) and my research (likewise
varied), as well as in my reflection upon the interplay of
these two strands of my professional life.
Elsewhere in this publication, researchers explore the
usefulness of ‘vagueness’ within schematic conceptions
of the ‘research-teaching nexus’. Whilst doing so, in
a way that once more brings Pecock to mind, they are
also implicitly interrogating the vagueness of the terms
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
151
themselves: ‘research’, for example, is a lot more slippery
than it may at first appear, meaning different things to
different people within different institutions. My home
institution defines itself not as ‘research-led’ but as a
‘teaching-focused, research-informed institution’ – a
subtle distinction, but one that perhaps articulates the
symbiotic nature of the relationship rather more clearly,
whilst signalling the institutional ethos regarding the key
purpose for which these activities are undertaken. As for
‘research’, it is considered rather broadly to be:
The creation and dissemination of new knowledge,
insights, or interpretative frameworks through
activities which might include but are not confined
to books, parts of books, articles, websites and other
forms of published output (including artefacts and
performances), and conference papers, public lectures
and other forms of public output, and the activities
required to produce such materials.
Such a description is comfortingly nebulous, providing
an umbrella which covers primary research, along with
applied and creative research and, indeed, a tantalising
fringe bristling with the promise of as-yet unnamed
possibilities.
It may be argued that such imprecision renders the
definitions all but useless yet, as Pecock reminds us, any
attempt at linguistic exactitude is ultimately doomed to
failure almost before the ink has dried. Nonetheless, for
all the apparent defeatism inherent in this observation,
there is an equal and opposite benefit. As the Structuralists
Case studies
Drawing as a collective activity
Michael Szpakowski and Ruth Catlow, Writtle College
long ago noted, language does not merely describe our
world, it actively constitutes it; consequently, this vague
– arguably even unsatisfactory/unsatisfying – definition
creates a liberating sense of what ‘research’ may entail.
By way of example, in terms of my own personal ‘output’
in recent months, I am not required to make restrictive
– and to a great extent arbitrary – distinctions between
a book on medieval misericords, contributions to an
anthology of experimental writing, and a collaborative
performance with a Taiko drumming group. The result
is that these apparently diverse activities are freed from
artificial compartmentalization.
The concomitant benefit is that this fluid
intermingling of topics, disciplines and approaches is
ideally constituted to seep through, around and into all
aspects of teaching. This, naturally, leads to the question
of what ‘teaching’ actually is. It is perhaps easier to pin
down this term as an educative activity whereby one
informs and enables one’s students through instruction,
training and/or example. Yet there is no reason to believe
that this term should be any more rigid than ‘research’.
The often implied unidirectional nature of teaching
is rightly modified in diagrammatic representations
of scholarly and research activities elsewhere in this
publication, yet I would suggest that a more dynamic
picture would, rather than tracking the ebb and flow
between research activity and learning and teaching,
simply dispense with the dividing boundary altogether,
going beyond the suggestion that both are of equal
status and instead acknowledging that they are
inseparably merged.
At the heart of English studies (itself a further indefinable designation) is the on-going interrogation and
manipulation of mutable language that is ‘chaunged
withynne yeeris and cuntrees’ and, for all that reading
and writing may be largely solitary pursuits, this cannot
take place in a vacuum. And within an institution’s
English subject area, however it may be configured, the
multidirectional dynamic of research, teaching and
learning needs to remain indeterminate and ‘not stabili …
writen’ for the subject to remain responsive to the needs of
a scholarly community that embraces both academic staff
and students in all their multifarious, interdependent roles
in a perplexingly – yet excitingly – shifting world.
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Someone said to me: ‘To you football is a matter of life or
death!’ and I said ‘Listen, it’s more important than that.’
Bill Shankly
within the Babel of practices which current art education
encompasses?
Drawing is one of the two oldest purely cultural – in the
sense of playful, not directly concerned with keeping body
and soul together like cooking or hunting or shelter –
activities that comes down to us today directly in the form
of artefacts from between 25–35 thousand years ago (the
other is music).
There is no known human culture that has not made
representational and other marks with something, on
something, for both fun and survival. Furthermore, as
Patrick Maynard demonstrates in his steely eyed and
magisterial Drawing Distinctions, it can be shown to be
the practice which more than any other underpins not only
all of present day visual culture (including photography,
which, following Maynard, we read as a species of drawing)
but also the technical developments of our advanced
industrial age. With satisfying circularity, drawing, a
fundamental tool for engineers and architects, scaffolds
the level of production which (by guaranteeing surplus
product) is the prerequisite for the very existence of our
substantial caste of artists and designers, those useless and
indispensable dreamers.
Arguably, then, in a perfect world its study might be
counted, with literacy and numeracy, as a genuinely key
skill to be studied by all. Certainly, perhaps a more
realistic demand, it should be a practice both underpinning and overarching any systematic education in
art and design. What concrete shape might this take
Experimental teaching and peer-learning
A couple of years ago the two of us, both from a background
in digital art/moving image, started teaching on two
consecutive courses – a Foundation degree in Digital Art
and Design and its top-up, a BA (Hons) degree in Art and
Design Practice. Much of the formal documentation of the
courses specified the use of particular kinds of software
and allegedly real-world reasons for deploying them
(many involving the demands of ‘industry’). From the
start we were antagonistic to this approach. We wanted
to ‘artify’ the course – introduce as much experimental,
speculative, exploratory, pleasurable and downright
pointless (in the way that the best art is both pointless and
hugely important) activity as possible. We didn’t abandon
the idea of teaching design, but we did decide that the
core course programme would henceforth be art/design
agnostic – it would deal with ways of making and thinking
about images (as well as sound, performance, interactions
or concepts) that could be used with profit by students
moving in either or both or other directions. It would not
be training; work would be driven by the imagination
and shaped by the ambitions of students. Teachers would
introduce new technical processes, but these would be
embedded in thematically organised investigations of
historic and contemporary precedents. Help with technique
or software might be part of what teachers did, but this
would be part of an organic investigation/development by
student and teacher together. If a teacher knew something
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Case studies
they would help; if they didn’t, they might know where to
look; if neither knew, they might search together; if the
student knew, they could teach other students and the
teacher too. In short we identified a peer-learning process
as the only sensible approach sufficient for developing
the necessary skills, knowledge and flair in a rapidlydeveloping field.
Moreover we wanted a course that integrated the
digital with every other sort of visual (and conceptual,
performative and sonic) practice. We were both impatient
with the idea that work made using digital tools, or
work created within and distributed across a network,
was somehow qualitatively different from all that had
preceded it (a not uncommon view often allied to a species
of digital mysticism). Indeed we realised we both sensed,
and gradually came to articulate clearly, that there was
a continuum – a chain – from the cave painter to the
contemporary artist. Not to say that social and historical
concreteness plays no explicatory role, but that there is
some still human centre to mark making (and to allied
practices – singing, the telling of tales, etc.) which has
persisted and will persist and is part of the territory of
being human. ‘A chain’ is no loose metaphor, but a precise
account of the reality. Inspiration and technique pass
continuously from generation to generation. And this is
cumulative – making much of the past of art available to its
future. In a sense the terrain of art accretes, expands, as time
passes. Even what is lost to famine or war, proscript-ion,
taste and changes in technology leaves traces, the possibility
of reconstruction and re-use (and, often most creatively,
misuse). This is what we wanted to instil in our students.
Teachers as learners: drawing and the digital
Our drawing sessions link to and are inspired by earlier
instances of art powered pedagogy that place cross-form
conversation at the heart of learning together. Joseph
Beuys made drawings throughout his artistic life – often
enigmatic constellations of media, concepts, entities,
political figurations and material properties. However of
particular relevance here are his extended works, Office
of the Organization for Direct Democracy by Popular
Vote for 100 days at documenta 5, 1972 and Honey Pump
in the Workplace for documenta 6 in 1977, in which he
demonstrates his expanded notion of art that is exactly
congruous with his philosophy of teaching – ‘to reactivate
the “life values” through a creative interchange on the basis
of equality between teachers and learners.’ Both pieces
required the involvement of many people in processes
outside of the realms of ordinary action (such as the
maintenance of the plastic pipes of the honey pump as it
circulated two tonnes of honey through the building) in
order that they might connect with unfamiliar concepts
and experiences. The artworks integrated many different
categories of work (some, but not all, associated with art
making) including performance and the practice of various
disciplines (of dialogue, rhetoric, democratic processes of
exchange and decision making). And yet, in an interview
with Achille Bonito Oliva, Beuys makes it clear that he
has no interest in leading audiences towards an ‘activism
devoid of content’. The liberation of humankind through
art (Beuys proposes that everyone is an artist and society
is to be sculpted by everyone) depends on a more deliberate
engagement of individual energies.
Drawing was particularly important to both of us. It
was something Ruth had always done from an early age.
Collections of drawings made by her between the ages of
six and thirteen depict public street scenes of everyday
social groupings and activities (a group of kids running
with a dog, two mothers with two prams, businessmen
waiting for a bus). The figures are too small to carry facial
expressions. Nevertheless their interactions, mood, social
status and relationships are expressed by their outfits,
gait, their gestures and their proximity to each other and
other elements of the scene. Ruth now looks back on these
as evidence of an early growing fascination with sociality.
Through school she learned that ‘drawing well’ meant
producing an image as much like a photograph as one
might render. Praise and grades were awarded accordingly.
Later, at art school, drawing became a liberating process
of discovery. She generated abstract marks, as traces of
energies within the body, rather than to create a deliberate
composition within a pictorial plane. In this way she
produced surfaces such as might be produced by soot
covered animals (think monkey, gazelle, seal, tiger, crow)
thrown together into a white room. This surface would
then serve as a mirror (or crystal ball) from which entities,
gestures and forms of light and shadow emerged to
be drawn out in further explorations of aspects of
her unconscious.
Drawing was something that Michael aspired to.
Because he had come to moving image work - to ‘being
an artist’ – by a strange route through theatre, maths
and music, he had both a fascination with and a terror of
drawing. He had been the kid in the class who couldn’t
draw, and yet had loved the feeling, the deep engagement
with both the act and with what it awoke inside him – his
mind’s eye – that it brought. In his moving image work
he had attempted to confront this. The inverted commas
that came with a certain species of conceptualism were a
great help because he could frame himself performatively,
comically almost, as an uncertain but oh-so-willing
draftsperson, one with no eye or dexterity, a technical
schlemiel.
In his secret heart, though, he knew he wanted to do this
thing without (or at least largely without) irony.
Arising out of this obsession, in the early years of the
new millennium, Michael had launched a little provocation
where he challenged digital artists, as they were then still
called, to create self-portraits, on the sole condition that
this be done using non-digital means, and subsequently to
photograph them for display in an online archive. Those
who didn’t baulk at the task produced a touching and
intriguing panorama, of pen and paint and pencil but also
of bathroom tile, egg tempera and iron filings…
As part of a discussion about this Michael had opined
on some listserv or other that the barriers between artistic
practices were porous and that the true measure of anyone
aspiring to be an artist (musician, film maker, poet) was
that, if lost in a deep forest or desert isle, with only a rock
to make some marks on and another rock to make those
marks with, the putative artist would eventually produce
something of interest, depth and value.
Early on we introduced chunks of drawing as an
occasional workshop – Ruth introduces, and then builds
on familiar art school, Bauhaus type exercises that attempt
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
155
Case studies
Students as teachers
The big epiphany came with the introduction of a weekly
drawing session for all three years of the course. It
happened and happens every Monday of term, without
fail, and everyone in the room takes part, staff included.
As many days as possible where more than one member
of staff is present in the room, to make for debate, thus
modelling civilised disagreement and forcing students,
ultimately, to make up their own minds; there are usually
two members of staff and occasionally more present.
Each drawing session is led by a student who brings in an
object, procedure or puzzle for the rest of us to address.
What happened is that we were rapidly out-Bauhaused
by our students. Byzantine sets of instructions for tasks
that we as teachers would have rejected out of hand as
overly complex, impractical or confusing were carefully
explained by students and then carried out by all of us in
utter silence.
Half an hour elapses, we place our sets of images on
the floor and we process around them all, discussing
them. The important thing is that everyone has drawn.
Everyone is both vulnerable and admirable. Teachers
are not privileged. For students, it is understood that
although the process carries course credit, what is being
marked eventually is a series of drawings – some ‘good’,
some ‘bad’, most neither – and that technique – whatever
that is - is not the focus. There must be room for play
in creative education; hence, for this part of the course,
taking part in all of the sessions is enough to secure
a pass.
With respect to collective feedback, our experience has
been that perceptive kindness predominates. We search
for the wonderful things, speculating on why they are
wonderful, maybe asking questions of the person who
has made this thing, trying to elicit that week’s secret or
lesson. The drawings are a pleasure to behold. We have
no intention of reproducing any of them here, though
many would bear reproduction – we do not want to betray
the egalitarian, labouring-together ethos of the thing
by selecting outside the sessions and group. We are not
sentimentalists – it is precisely because we understand
the necessary element of brutality involved in the fair
administration of an assessed course that we want to
create oases, visions of how things could be other. It is the
collective production of shared work that matters – it is
not, let us emphasise though, a privileging of ‘process over
production’. The production matters – desperately so.
Over the weeks, our drawings are diverse in category,
style, media and technique including: illustrations of
the set task, abstractions, naïve figurations, diagrams,
signs; some are performances of processes made in pencil,
pen, paper, wood, charcoal, paint, collage, arrangements
of plastic objects, paper-constructions; they reveal our
choices and learning. Some students advance arguments
in their drawings either with each other or with their
own earlier work. As new tasks are set we each decide in
the moment whether we understand the activity we are
to involve ourselves with is mundane, ritualistic (perhaps
even sacred), mad or wise, pointless or significant – our
conclusions shape our drawings. In this way collective
drawing has become central to the ethos of our courses
as an integrative practice for negotiating a shared studio
culture and shaping our learning together, our movement
towards collegiality.
Doing the drawing means the week has a start to
it – we affirm ourselves as folk with a common interest,
different but equal. The sessions have helped to provide
a social glue, too, across the three years of the course.
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
157
to separate process from outcome-anxiety, allowing
students to engage with an inner dialogue about their
looking and representation un-disrupted by fears of
inadequacy. These include: drawing without looking at
the paper, from memory, without removing pencil from
paper; drawing with the ‘wrong’ hand; drawing in five
minutes or five seconds; drawing only negative space;
having the pencil trace the movement of the eyeball
as the drawer observes an object, etc. Michael felt the
centrality of drawing calling him but these sessions
still felt like a slightly naughty holiday, an activity
that did not necessarily link to his background and
formation as an artist. The teacher, like the student,
was still exploring.
Conclusion
There are areas where we as teachers know more than the
students; both of us have track records of work in the art
world, but the drawing sessions level us all – they enable
a mutually supportive but acute look at progress on a
common task.
Since the drawing started we have also incorporated
its lessons to other disciplines; staff and students share
their photography work in a more horizontal way than
the demands of the course would normally allow. We
use new forms of social media, and have Flickr accounts
in which all participants are contacts. We comment
on and ‘favourite’ each other’s works as equals and
collaborators.
Both drawing and photography in these contexts
devolve to something similar – filling a blank space by
mark making, with valuable, experiential knowledge
accrued: repeating processes many times over to find
out what constitutes skill and when (often, it turns
out, much more often than is often acknowledged) to
accept the gifts brought by chance; discovering that the
art happens in a social space between the maker, the
wider world and the viewer; understanding the work of
others because we do it side by side; and, finally, coming
to grips with the question of personal style and the
diversity of ways of doing things well and meaningfully.
Each week reveals both artistic phylogeny and
ontogeny – we solve the problem here and now, as if
for the first time ever and this illuminates the historical
chain, the intertwining of theory and practice, our
mutual dependence, all of us artists and all of us
nourished by art too.
Case studies
Research and engagement in the Performing Arts:
The Stanislavski Centre
Paul Fryer, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance
158
Collaborations around the collection
The Centre has developed close links with organisations
such as The Moscow Art Theatre, the St Petersburg State
Academy of Theatre Arts, the international publisher
Routledge and, most recently, Shakespeare’s Globe
Education. The Routledge/Theatre Arts Archive, which
includes core research material for Routledge’s new
Stanislavski edition, is also housed in the Centre as a
permanent loan. Throughout the year, the Centre presents
a series of events, all of which are open to the general
public: recent lectures, master-classes and workshops
have explored the work of Edward Gordon Craig, Sanford
Meisner, Lee Strasberg, Michael Chekhov and Harley
Granville Barker. Recent guest lecturers have included
Anatoly Smeliansky, Sergei Tcherkasski, Jonathan Pitches,
Rosamund Bartlett, Jonah Salz and Richard St Peter.
The Stanislavski Centre/Routledge Annual Lecture,
sponsored by Routledge, has become a central event for
the centre and for the College. The first lecture was given
by Professor Anatoly Smeliansky, Dean of the Moscow
Art Theatre School, and Associate Director of the
Moscow Art Theatre. The second lecture, in April 2012,
was given by Professor Bella Merlin from the University
of California Davis.
The inaugural event, Stanislavski on Stage, an
exhibition of the photographs from the archive
collection, was staged at the National Theatre in Spring
2008. This also generated a book under the same title,
which included essays written by the members of
the Centre’s advisory board. Early research projects
hosted and supported by the Centre included Teaching
Stanislavski, a Palatine-funded project which examined
how Stanislavski is taught in post-16 and Level 4 tertiary
education in the UK. This project is currently being
expanded to adopt a European view of the topic, and has
been the subject of a major Erasmus grant application.
On-going projects have included Chekhov’s Theatres, the
first part of which, a short essay by Professor Christopher
Baugh on the theatre in Yalta, is available on the
Centre’s website. The Centre has a long association with
Copernicus Films, a Moscow-based production company
run by the British filmmaker, Michael Craig. The
Centre provided material for and consulted on his recent
documentary film, Stanislavski and The Russian Theatre.
The Centre has a very active website which acts as
a medium for news and events, but also as facility to
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Case studies
The Stanislavski Centre at Rose Bruford College of Theatre
and Performance was founded in 2007 and is a unique
initiative within the UK to create a home for both academic
research and practice/performance events focused upon
the work, teaching and legacy of Konstantin Stanislavski,
the legendary Russian director whose influential career
spanned both the Czarist and Soviet periods (he was
born in 1863 and died in 1938). The Centre, which builds
upon the work of the College’s former Principal, the late
Professor Jean Benedetti, is located within the Learning
Resources Centre, and houses a core collection of books and
other printed material (mostly in the Russian language), a
photographic archive of more than 200 images and a small
collection of video-based material, most of which relate to
Stanislavski’s own productions at the Moscow Art Theatre.
Further reading
Valladas, H., Clottes, J., Geneste, J.M., Garcia, M. A., Arnold,
M., Cachier, H., Tisnérat-Laborde, N., (October 2001) Evolution of
Prehistoric Cave Art, Nature Vol. 413.
Conard, N.J., Malina, M. and Münzel S. C. (6 August 2009) New
Flutes Document the Earliest Musical Tradition in Southwestern
Germany, Nature Vol. 460.
Maynard, P. (2005) Drawing Distinctions: The Varieties of
Graphic Expression, Cornell University Press.
Maynard, P. (1997) The Engine of Visualization: Thinking
Through Photography, Cornell University Press.
Self Portraits by Artists and Others [online]
www.somedancersandmusicians.com/io/io.cgi
[Accessed 16th February 2012].
Writtle Flickr group [online] Available at: www.flickr.com
groups/writtle.
Brenner, R. Political Art, Walker Arts Center | Joseph Beuys |
Political Art [online]. Available at: www.walkerart.org/archive
F/9C4309B0B50D8AA36167.html [Accessed 16th February 2012].
Beuys, J. (1990), Energy Plan for the Western Man, Joseph Beuys
in America. Writings by and interviews with the artist, compiled
by Kuoni, C. Four Walls Eight windows, NY, p. 159.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Plymouth College of Art
communicate research to students and the wider education
community. In March 2012, the Centre published the
first edition of a new ejournal, Stanislavski Studies, in
partnership with The St Petersburg State Academy of
Theatre Arts; the second edition of this journal is due to
appear in November 2012.
Our newest research project, Contemporary Directions,
which will explore the changing role of the director in
21st century theatre, is a partnership with Shakespeare’s
Globe Education. The project launches in June 2012 with
an evening event at the College opening, which includes a
keynote speech by the English director Sir Richard Eyre.
The project will continue over the following eighteen
months, with events taking place both at The Globe and at
RBC, and will result in the creation of a new educational
resource. All of the Centre’s activities are recorded (audio/
video) and copies are available in the College’s special
collections room. This material is building into a valuable
research resource, available both to our own students and
staff and to external users.
opportunity to engage with leading practitioners from
all parts of the industry. Direct exposure to immediate
research, scholarship and practice associated with
Stanislavski and the Centre, linked to local, national and
international Performing Arts education initiatives that
encompass the general as well as the scholarly public,
enriches the creative research culture of the College for
students, staff and audiences alike.
Conclusion
The Centre actively seeks to link events with the needs
of the College’s curriculum, and programmes frequently
utilise our lectures and master-classes as part of their
core teaching. The Centre also contributes activities and
materials to the College’s annual Symposium, a week
during the Spring in which all teaching is suspended to
allow for a busy programme of workshops, performances,
talks, interviews, installations, and other events which
offer a platform for staff and student work as well as an
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What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
161
Case studies
Up the creek without a communication aid:
Speech and language therapy and outdoor adventure education
Lynsey Parrott, Esther Pettit and Mark Leather
University College Plymouth St Mark & St John
research investigation would benefit teaching and research
in both faculties at UCP Marjon.
Using an internal University College award of £3000,
the initial project saw a series of focus groups conducted
with diploma and honours level Outdoor Adventure
Education students. Their knowledge and experience
of children with disabilities, particularly with speech,
language and communication impairments, was explored.
Subsequently, qualified and experienced OAE practitioners
were interviewed to identify their knowledge, attitudes
and practice experience of working with children with
disabilities, communication needs and augmentative
communication systems. It was evident that a difference
in the quantity and quality of knowledge and experience
necessitated both investigations.
Introduction
University College Plymouth St Mark and St John (UCP
Marjon) has undergraduate students of Speech and
Language Therapy and Outdoor Adventure Education.
These subject areas are managed and administrated in
different faculties within the institution, and before this
research began there was no collaboration between the two
subjects, despite the relatively small size of the University
College. This interdisciplinary development realised the
potential for overtly unrelated subjects to contribute novel
approaches to improving peoples’ quality of life.
Speech and language therapy is concerned with the
management of disorders of speech, language, and
communication in children and adults. At UCP Marjon,
the three and a half year professional training enables
graduates to register with the Health Professions Council,
UK and practice within the NHS and other organizations
such as SCOPE, the UK disability charity for people with
cerebral palsy.
Many people with cerebral palsy have complex speech
and/or language difficulties, resulting in reduced or absent
verbal output, or restricted understanding of language
input, and compensatory augmentative communication
systems (ACS) may be used (Beukelman & Mirenda 2005;
RCSLT 2006). These systems include gestures, photos,
symbols and spelling to communicate. People who need
ACS to communicate more easily across a variety of
contexts with different partners will need a speech and
language therapist to help devise techniques and strategies
to enable them interact with others: to tell jokes, ask a
question or make a sarcastic remark.
People who use ACS vary greatly in the activities in
which they participate and the types of interactions they
undertake. The field of Outdoor Adventure Education
(OAE) provides opportunities for people to experience
novel situations with the ultimate aim of enhancing their
confidence, enjoyment and development of values and
attitudes useful for ‘everyday’ life.
OAE encompasses a range of activities facilitated within
a variety of contexts – for example, ‘outdoor activities’,
‘environmental education’ and ‘personal and social
development’ – and there is an underlying philosophy that
the experience of OAE is unique, individual and founded
on personal abilities and interests (Barnes and Sharp
2004). It can be taught in schools, but is more typically
located in dedicated outdoor education centres. Within
England, outdoor and adventurous activities are found
within the National Curriculum for physical education.
For the purposes of our research we concentrated on
practitioners based in outdoor adventure education centres.
Collaboration
Cross faculty discussions were triggered by a final year
Speech and Language Therapy dissertation project,
‘Communication in the Outdoors; a training package for
outdoor education instructors to improve their awareness
of communication and augmentative and alternative
communication (AAC)’. This ran as a pilot project for this
innovative research. In order for this to be accomplished,
the authors met to discuss and discover areas of mutual
interest in terms of content and pedagogy as well as
research methodology. It became evident that a wider
Part One of the Research Process
The research process was initiated using focus groups
of OAE students to explore their existing knowledge
base, experiences and views of working with people
with disabilities, in particular speech, language and
communication needs.
Following this, OAE students participated in a
workshop where they learnt about potential barriers to
communication, why outdoor education centres need to
be communication friendly and ways in which this can be
achieved. They focussed on the importance of non-verbal
communication, listening skills and ACS (unaided, aided,
low and high technology). Students had opportunities to
observe and experiment with objects of reference, signs,
symbols and a variety of communication devices. Finally
162
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
163
a discussion was had concerning the implementation
of changes to the student’s practice and the importance
of tailoring their approach to meet the needs of the
individual.
Research Findings and Dissemination
Outdoor Adventure Education students reported on the
nuances of developing new forms of communication to
supplement traditional education methods. As students
and staff worked, through focus groups and interviews
with practitioners, to organise findings and reflect on
approaches, a number of headline themes emerged,
including:
• Acknowledging barriers.
• Role of peoples’ carers/families/personal assistants.
• Impact of inclusion.
• Labelling.
• Fear of ‘getting it wrong’.
Experienced OAE practitioners echoed similar statements
to those from the students and emphasised the notion
of needing a ‘mindset for inclusion’ that included a ‘real
can do’ attitude. In a focus group, one third year student
observed that ‘when you are working with [disabled
students]…you just need to be able to be quite creative and
open minded’. Another noted that practitioners need to be
particularly aware of the ‘labels’ associated with various
disabilities, and to be particularly conscious of personal
perceptions of the limitations and barriers associated
with these. However, this can lead to a fear of ‘getting it
Case studies
Fig 1: The Research-Led
Teaching Cycle
wrong’ and alienating potential beneficiaries of OAE and
augmented communication; the perception that you were
always working with the potential to ‘offend’ someone,
‘whether it be the child, the parent…your co-workers’
meant that you ‘always had to be very careful’ (Interview).
Both practitioners and students demonstrated an
awareness of the different roles carers, families, and
assistants can play in the child’s participation. This
awareness can lead to confusion and even fear associated
with ‘getting things wrong’, and inhibiting as opposed to
encouraging development; as one practitioner observed,
carers might act as ‘over-protective gatekeepers’. Another
noted that one carer ‘was like “no you can’t go, no you
can’t go”, but when they got back he [the carer] said the
he absolutely loved it and that he was going up and over
rocks and everything’. A learning curve thus emerged with
respect to carers and children when they found themselves,
through the outdoor adventure experience, confronting
unfamiliar situations and problems in the presence of a
third-party facilitator. In the end, another OAE leader
observed that ‘I wasn’t pushing the child; the child was
pushing her carers with my support. That’s quite subtle.’
Some interesting comments were expressed by students
concerning expectations and indicators of success. These
seem to imply a naive uncertainty perhaps surrounding the
students’ perceptions of their roles within the activities.
One student observed how that working with children with
disabilities impacts on the group dynamic: ‘when you [get]
normal children they get used to you, get used to rules and
as soon as you bring in someone with disabilities it upsets
everything’, this despite the fact that ‘no one was being
held back able-bodied wise’; it was an issue of assumption
that the practitioner needed to be prepared for (second
year student).
164
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Further
research
Dissemination and impact of research
The findings from this qualitative research were presented
at international conferences for outdoor education
research (IOER 2011 in Denmark) as well as to speech
and language therapists and associated practitioners
(ISAAC 2010 in Barcelona). The inclusive nature of outdoor
education and the benefits and barriers for children who
use augmentative communication systems were the foci
of both papers. Currently, papers for both professional
communities are being completed for submission to peerreviewed journals.
The significant research findings have been integrated
into the teaching of both SLT and OAE students at
UCP Marjon in order to effect real change in practice.
For example, an innovation on the Outdoor Adventure
Education degree has been to invite an adult who uses
augmentative communication systems to teach on the
Disability Awareness module. His session explored his
participation in outdoor education and his experience of
living with cerebral palsy, including use of ‘labels’. The
students had direct experience and communication with
someone who uses communication aids (voice output
device as well as a symbol board). This is accompanied by
material about ACS taught by SLT lecturers. Particular
emphasis was given to key issues relevant to facilitating
communication, for example, the importance of direct
communication with ACS users (not through the carer and
Professional
practice
Research
findings
Student
dissertation
Teaching
Practitioner’s
interviews
Staff led
research
Student’s
focus group
165
Case studies
Formative work to support student academic development
in biological sciences
John E. Morgan and Anya M.B. Perera, Writtle College
thus minimising the ‘gate keeper’ effect), the selection
and programming of specific vocabulary and useful
practical strategies. Some key issues came directly from
the research findings.
As a direct result of the research, OAE students are
taught specifically about the need to prepare fully for
including people with communication needs, in order to
create opportunities for reflection and sharing. Specifically,
Greenaway suggests that ‘the benefits of outdoor education
are gained from the interaction between self, others and
the environment being combined with skilled facilitation
to enable reflection’ (2004). Without this planned and
facilitated time for reflection, children with various
disabilities can be unintentionally excluded from the full
benefits of an outdoor education programme. The next
step in the research process will be to evaluate the outcome
of this session through student blogs, diaries and focus
groups in order to understand how this research impacts
on learners’ practice.
Wider implications & conclusions
The importance of research informing teaching,
particularly in this case with respect to developing Outdoor
Adventure Education and augmentative communication
systems for disabled children, is clear. The multi-stage
process that describes this research project is shown in
Figure 1 on the previous page.
The support of the institution allowed this project to
be completed and facilitated the dissemination of this
work through the presentation of findings at two separate
international conferences. The research has directly
166
informed the teaching and professional practice of all
involved. Additionally, the professional development of
staff, the cross faculty collaboration and the associated
benefits for students are evidence of the multi-faceted
advantages of this type of applied research project. This
could be expanded in the future to exploit the potential
advantages of interdisciplinary research in the education
sector. The quality of teaching and the direct rewards
that this brings to the students’ experience, as well as
to participants in and beneficiaries of creative forms of
education, are the obvious benefits to greater levels of
research led teaching.
Further reading
Barnes, P. and Sharp, B. (2004). The RHP Companion to Outdoor
Education. Lyme Regis: Russell House Publishing.
Beukelman,D. and Mirenda,P. (2005) Augmentative ad alternative
communication:supporting children and adults with complex
communication needs. USA: Paul Brooks Publ.
Greenaway, R. (2004). A View into the Future: The Value of Other
Ways of Learning and Development. In P. Becker (Ed.) Other Ways
of Learning: Marburg: The European Institute for Outdoor
Adventure Education and Experimental Learning.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Despite evidence that formative assessment can support
student learning and understanding, pressures within the
Higher Education sector are such that it is often underused or ignored completely as a resource for assessing
student and course development. However, formative
approaches that support learning and understanding
are especially important in the light of the widening
participation agenda, particularly for a diverse profile
of students without a traditional science background
entering HE to study science-based courses.
We have recognised that the delivery of compulsory
Stage 1 science modules has to be responsive to a changing
entry profile and tailored to address transition issues
facing students moving into tertiary education, without
compromising academic standards. Our work focuses
on the use of formative assessment in a level 4 science
module, which is compulsory for students undertaking
BSc (Honours) and Foundation Degree (FdSc) in both
Horticulture and Conservation programmes. The aim
of our study was to ascertain student views on the
formative approaches utilised within the module, and
whether they believed that formative work was of value
to them in helping their understanding and learning.
In addition, the study enabled us to investigate whether
there was evidence of any potential link between student
engagement with formative work, and subsequence
performance in summative assessment. The work covered
two academic years, and involved 68 students.
A range of formative approaches were utilised, as
follows:
• Formative multiple choice examination, which preceded
the summative end-of-module examination.
• The opportunity, in small groups, to scrutinise and
grade student exemplar work, which was followed by
tutor feedback.
• The coupling of two pieces of formative work with final
summative assessment of practical coursework. This
was based on two hour weekly practical classes (over 13
teaching weeks), and students were able to submit their
work for formative assessment in weeks 3 and 6 of the
semester. Their work was marked and returned within
one week to enable the written and verbal tutor feedback to be used to feed-forward. Completed work from
the final four weeks of practicals formed the summative
element of assessment.
167
Case studies
Findings
Views of the students were collected at the end of the
module using an anonymous paper-based questionnaire,
consisting of 14 statements and opportunity for free text
comments; students ranked their perception of formative
work on a scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘none’
Most (98%) students engaged with at least one element
of formative work. More specifically, engagement with
MCQ, FW1 and FW2 was 90%, 91% and 75%, respectively;
69% of students engaged with all three components.
The response rate to the questionnaire was 96%, and
revealed over 95% agreement (for all fourteen statements)
that formative work had helped in their learning and
understanding. Free text comments reaffirmed the high
level of support for the process, for example:
‘This was the most useful part as we can learn
from our mistakes and improve.’
‘…gave me clear individual guidance on progress,
which is essential to monitor your own development
and knowledge.’
‘I felt I improved each time due to very constructive
feedback and suggestions.’
Overall, many students found that formative work was
helpful in supporting their learning and understanding,
and appeared to be of most value to them when coupled
explicitly to summatively – assessed work, helping
learners to identify and reflect on what they needed to do
to improve, feeding forward to summative assessment.
The student perception was that engaging with voluntary
formative assessment accrued benefits, particularly with
regard to academic expectations and their own learning
behaviours. The use of small group work within a formative
framework also encouraged discussion and interaction, and
helped develop a network of peer-support for collaborative
learning. In addition, the explicit coupling of formative
work to summative assessment was found to result in an
improvement in the marks achieved by the students, a
pattern repeated in a later study undertaken by ourselves
(involving 70 students).
168
Conclusion
Our study used formative feedback overtly as a mechanism
to establish a dialogue between students and tutors, and
provided a means for students to monitor and reflect
on their own progress. The immediacy of formative
feedback helped define both academic expectations and in
supporting individual learner needs at a point early within
the programme of study.
Our findings indicate that by engaging with formative
assessment, students can develop their transferable and
metacognitive skills to facilitate both transition and
academic progression. Opportunities afforded by formative
assessment to reinforce learning and understanding
may also lead to an improvement in overall student
performance, particularly for those from non-science
backgrounds entering HE to study science-based courses.
In essence, the approaches taken in our study encouraged
and developed student empowerment, a key element in
supporting a learning journey. Our findings have been
presented at an international conference for Horticultural
Practitioners, a paper published (Acta Horticulturae (ISHS)
920, 141–148) and a poster was presented at a Higher
Education Academy (Biosciences) meeting in September
2010. We are currently investigating whether student
entry profiles influence their academic development
and achievement (as measured by their engagement and
performance in formative work and linked summative
assessment). Our preliminary findings were presented at
the Higher Education Academy (Biosciences) Conference
in June 2011. Our project is on-going, and we are planning
to write papers for submission to peer-reviewed journals in
order to further disseminate our findings to the HE sector.
What is research-led teaching? Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Contributors
Prof Yahya Al-Nakeeb is Director of Research at Newman University
College.
Dr Saul Bloxham is Head of Sport Development and Outdoor
Learning at University College Plymouth St Mark & St John.
The Reverend Professor June Boyce-Tillman is Lecturer in the
Department of Performing Arts at University of Winchester with
responsibility for postgraduates.
Samantha Broadhead is course leader for the part-time Access to
HE Diploma and critical studies tutor for the BA(Hons) Printed
Textiles and Surface Pattern at Leeds College of Art.
James A. Brown is Lecturer in Contextual Practices at Plymouth
College of Art.
Carol Callinan is Lecturer Special Educational Needs at Bishop
Grossteste University College.
Ruth Catlow is Head of the School of Design at Writtle College.
Dr Pauline Couper is Research Coordinator at University College
Plymouth St Mark & St John, having joined the institution in 2002
as Lecturer in Geography.
John Davies is Senior Lecturer in Computing at Glyndwr University.
Uwe Derksen is Assistant Director of Research + Enterprise at
University for the Creative Arts.
Dr Edward Dickin is Lecturer in Agronomy at Harper Adams
University College.
Dr Di Drummond is Reader in Modern History at Leeds Trinity
University College.
Dr Jill Fernie-Clarke is Research Coordinator at Leeds College
of Art.
Karl Foster is a creative practitioner who works with schools,
galleries and Higher Education and is co-director of hedsor.
Kimberley Foster is Senior Lecturer on the Visual Studies B.A.
(Hons) at Norwich University College of the Arts and co-director
of hedsor.
Dr Paul Fryer is Associate Director of Research and Head of the
Stanislavski Centre at Rose Bruford College of Theatre &
Performance.
Sarah Gabbitas is Academic Guidance Tutor at Harper Adams
University College.
Mark Griffin is Academic Director and Programme Director
for Drama and Applied Theatre at St Mary’s University College
Twickenham.
Prof Vic Grout is Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise and
Professor of Network Algorithms at Glyndwr University.
Sharon Grover is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Design, Media
and Management at Buckinghamshire New University.
Matthew Hahn is Lecturer in Drama at St Mary’s University College
Twickenham.
Prof Lesley Haig is Director of Academic Affairs at St Mary’s
University College Twickenham.
Ian Hankey is Workshop Resource Development Coordinator is
Plymouth College of Art.
Prof Paul Hardwick is Professor of English at Leeds Trinity
University College.
Dr Moira Harris is Senior Lecturer in Animal Science at Harper
Adams University College.
Dr Brian Hemmings is Sub-Dean for Graduate Studies at Charles
Sturt University, Australia.
Jane Hill is Learner Support and Disability Co-ordinator at Harper
Adams University College.
John Howard is Research Office Administrator at Newman
University College.
Nicky Hunter is Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Environmental
Science at Harper Adams University College.
Ben Jane is Lecturer and Programme Leader for the BSc (Hons)
Health, Exercise and Physical Activity at University College
Plymouth St Mark & St John.
Prof Jake Kaner is Head of the Furniture Research Centre at
Buckinghamshire New University.
Dr Mark Leather is Senior Lecturer in Outdoor and Experiential
Education and University College Plymouth St Mark & St John.
Mary Loveday-Edwards is Lecturer in Contextual Practices at
Plymouth College of Art.
Melissa Mantle is Head of Department (PE) at University of
Chichester.
Prof Kerstin Mey is Director of Research + Enterprise at
University for the Creative Arts.
Dr John E. Morgan is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science at
Writtle College.
Lynsey Parrott is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and
Communication Sciences at University College Plymouth St Mark
& St John.
Dr Anya M.B. Perera is Senior Lecturer and Postgraduate
Coordinator at Writtle College.
Esther Pettit is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Communication
Sciences at University College Plymouth St Mark & St John.
Dr Laura Ritchie is Senior Lecturer in Music at University of
Chichester.
Dr Dan Robinson is tutor on the BA (Hons) Art & Design
Interdisciplinary at Leeds College of Art where he leads the
Interdisciplinary practice-research cluster.
Prof John G. Sharp is Head of Doctoral Studies at Bishop
Grosseteste University College.
Paul Salisbury is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport at Leeds
Trinity University College. He previously taught at University
College Plymouth St Mark & St John.
Dr Geoff Stoakes was Vice Principal (Academic) at University
College Plymouth St Mark & St John, and now works at the Higher
Education Academy in York as the Academic Lead for Research.
Michael Szpakowski lectures on Art and Design at Writtle College
and is also an artist and musician specialising in digital video for
the web.
Dr John Paul Wilson is Director of Research Development at
University of Worcester.
Consortium for Research Excellence, Support and
Training (CREST)
The CREST exists for institutions that have achieved
high levels of research excellence concentrated in smaller
communities of research practice, in order to:
• Create a collaboration of equal partners seeking to
achieve research excellence through collegiality and
mutual support.
• Achieve collective and individual innovations in
translational research with benefits for students, society
and industry.
• Build research capacity within participating institutions
and secure critical mass together while retaining diverse,
student-centred, research-led learning environments.
• Provide an external structure for the sustainable delivery
of the research objectives of members and the promotion
and promulgation of their achievements.
CREST/GuildHE
Woburn House
20 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9HB
T: +44 (0)20 7387 7711
F: +44 (0)20 7387 7712
www.crest.ac.uk
Cover photographs by
Royal Agricultural College
and Plymouth College of Art